


A Port Key to Middle Earth

by ValkyrieSigyn



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Complete silliness, Crack, F/M, Forgive Me, Gen, M/M, Smut, Universe Travel, what the fuck have I done, yep I just did it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyrieSigyn/pseuds/ValkyrieSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three ordinary human girls from our world, gets somehow transported to Middle Earth as a part of Gandalf's plan to find some fit companions for Thorin's company, demanding loyalty, honour and a willing heart - but it wasn't exactly what they had expected to get. What will the girls do now, as they know about the Hobbit and what will happen? Will they play any role to the story line?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the Port Key

”Somehow, your rampage of my playlist order is both pissing me off and amusing me.” Rita smiled to Sandra and checked what more she had done. “Adding new playlists or songs to already existing playlists – why did you put in Through Fire and Flames in my cozy-list?”

“Just to be sure you didn’t fall asleep when relaxing. Be happy, I’m doing you a favour!” Sandra said to her defence as they walked down the path from the mountain. Sandra corrected her backpack; they had been sleeping under open skies this late summer night, bringing with only the most necessary things; a big knife, several smaller ones, emergency kits, bikinis, two fishing poles, sleeping bags and some pans to make simple food and a few extra clothes to stay warm during the night.

“I hear you say that…” Rita mumbled, but with a small smile as she browsed through the new playlist. “You’re kidding me – Tipperary?!”

“Just for the good old memories, my dear.” Sandra smirked to her but suddenly stopped in the track. “I’ve always wanted to go down to that river.” She said and looked at a river beneath them.

“We could go down if you want to. It’s warm, maybe we could dip our feet there.” Rita smiled and showed her the way.

“You know, I’m glad you’re so familiar along all the routes here, showing me places.” Sandra said as they jogged down the path to the river.

“Says the one that has shown me so many animal tracks and herbs and told me all about them.” Rita looked back for a brief second. “Ah, we’re there.”

“Looks even better than from the road.” Sandra smiled and sat down on a rock and started to take her shoes and socks off before she gently dipped her feet in the river.

“Come on! RAMMSTEIN in my cozy list?!” Rita moaned and dropped down beside Sandra, her face nothing else than disbelief.

“You have to admit that Sonne is beautiful.” Sandra lifted her brows, a small smirk on her lips.

“Jeez…” Rita rolled her eyes.

“Hey, what’s that?” Sandra bent down and moved a stone and as she straightened up again, she held a ring. “Something’s written on it, looks like elfish, like Lord of the Rings.”

“I guess it’s another replica then.” Rita said and looked at it for then looking surprised. “No, the text is different!”

“Are you saying it’s a different design?” Sandra frowned.

“No, the letters are the same design, but the words are different.” Rita said and started to read them. “It’s elfish.”

“Fascinating, didn’t know you knew elfish.” Sandra smiled and took the ring back again.

“I don’t know it, I just saw it on some other site that this was what was written on the rings the dwarf lords were given or something.” Rita shrugged her shoulder for then looking around, seeing the landscape had changed and she didn’t recognize the place anymore. “What happened?”

“Rita, we’re in trouble.” Sandra said low, looking behind them. Rita turned and then froze.

“What are your businesses here, humans?”

“Now that’s something.” Rita said and looked at the dwarves that were surrounding them, all of them holding their weapons ready and one even pointing an arrow at them.

“You didn’t answer my question.” One of the dwarves spoke again and stepped up to them, placing the tip of the sword on Rita’s throat – she looked up at him in confusion, wondering why a bunch of short men, dressed in medieval clothes, were carrying old-fashioned weapons and obviously cosplaying the Hobbit – cosplaying so good that they actually looked like the actors. The dwarf pointing the sword at them was the tallest and seemed to be cosplaying Thorin.

“We were out walking. What is this, some sort of con?” she asked and tried to smile.

“You do wisely to not question our mission, human.” He said back, a darkened gaze upon them.

“It’s a bit freaky you keep calling us ‘human’, we do have names.” Sandra said and smiled politely for then having the tip of the sword between her eyes within a second. “Easy, we’re just two walkers!”

“Wearing nothing but underwear and a way too small shirt, dipping in a river and giggling?” The dwarf asked again. “Looks very suspicious to us.” Rita and Sandra looked at each other, wondering when knee-long shorts and training bras became underwear – it was in the middle of the summer!

“So you’re not thinking there’s a brothel in the nearby?” Rita asked, earning a strangled laugh from the dwarf holding the arrow against her.

“You never know what trickery hostile minds are playing on us. May I ask your names?” the dwarf still didn’t lower his sword.

“Rita, and Sandra” Rita said and nodded to her friend. “I guarantee, we are no enemies of yours, we were just having a walk, dipping our feet in the river and-“ then she stared at Sandra. “And chilling! We are peaceful Norwegians!”

“Norwegians?” the dwarf asked in confusion.

“From Norway?” Sandra said and frowned at him, earning an even more confused look from him.

“What kingdom is that?” one of the other dwarves asked their leader, an elderly one with a big white beard – Balin??

“Better be sure, we take them captive.” Another dwarf suggested, a bald one with tattoos and a large beard. Sandra stared at them in utter confusion as she recognized them.

“No, be sure, kill them!” Another elderly one suggested, holding a horn to his ear to hear the conversation. Rita stared at Sandra, wondering what her fandom surfing had gotten them into.

“What if they just happened to be out walking and bathing then – we don’t slice people just because they happened to be near us, aye?” another one with a funny hat said.

“They could keep us… company…” a young and blonde one said, getting a poke in his ribs from a big dwarf beside him. “Sorry, it was a joke…” he rolled his eyes, the one with the arrow strangling his laughter again.

“Bind their hands and check their bags, see if we have some extra clothes they can borrow if they don’t have much more than this.” The leader then said and turned to walk away. “And find Gandalf, I have a few questions for him about this.”

“Should we call the police?” Sandra hissed to Rita as their hands were bound behind their backs.

“I don’t think that will help us here.” Rita whispered. “We’re in Middle Earth.”

*

“Not typical haircuts for women from towns I know.” Bofur whispered to Gloin.

“Me neither. They can’t be from any area west of the mountains.” Gloin mumbled back, observing the two young women getting an apple each from the hobbit, but at least they didn’t seem to fear him as much as they had feared the dwarfs, rather quite the opposite than fear.

“Weird names too.” Kili said and took a large bite from his own apple. “Rita? Sandra?”

“Maybe they’re from south, like Gondor or Rohan!” Fili suggested.

“Come on, Rita almost died in fear when she was forced to sit onto Minty, even though uncle made sure she wouldn’t fall off…” Kili lifted his brows and for a moment he seemed amused. “It was quite entertaining when they jumped over that creek, she screamed all the way over and almost pulled one of his braids off.”

“Wasn’t it when Gandalf had to take her over to his horse?” Bofur smirked.

“Since it seemed like Thorin was that close to strangle her in fury, yes.” Dwalin said and sat down beside them. “Can’t remember last time I laughed so hard.”

“Have you found any clothes for them? It’s getting dark soon and they will freeze.” Gloin asked and looked up at Dwalin.

“Yeah, we only found some weird clothes in their bags, so we found some of our own breeches, socks, shirts and jackets, and they get to borrow some cloaks till we make it to Bree. But I’m afraid the clothes will be a bit too short...” Dwalin said and looked over to where the two women sat. “I think Thorin will try to get rid of them there – I saw that he was counting some gold coins, so it looks like he’s willing to give them some gold so they can get clothes and food there.”

“Come on, they’re not that bad.” Kili said and looked at Dwalin.

“No, when Sandra seemed to realize we weren’t going to hurt them, she was quite chatty, but they seem to be disorientated… Like they have no idea how they got here and where they are.” Gloin shrugged his shoulders, and the others nodded in agreement.

…

“Gandalf, I knew you said you would call for some assistance, but this is ridiculous!” Thorin sighed and looked at the wizard with a disapproving look. “I hope you’re not involved!”

“I’m afraid I am, the one called Rita carried the ring I placed here and they showed up at the exact spot. But I was calling for three warriors carrying the three things you asked for; loyalty, honour and a willing heart. Instead I got two disorientated young ladies…” Gandalf sighed and rubbed his templars.

“So you are the one to blame for this?” Thorin sighed and facepalmed as Gandalf nodded to him. “I have no idea what I’m going to do to you right now –first a hobbit, then two girls that looks like they can’t even hold a sword!”

“The hobbit can’t hold a sword either and I swear, without him you won’t success!” Gandalf put a hard gaze on Thorin, who looked like he was about to explode.

“You just admitted it! He can’t hold a sword!” Thorin threw his hands up in the air and turned away from Gandalf, slowly counting to ten before he turned back to the wizard. “Now, what are we going to do to them? Obviously they don’t know where they are and we can’t leave them for death either.”

“Listen now Thorin – I think this is a bit more about what we expected, not what we got. Look them in their eyes, I see they hold the qualities you demand, and I have a feeling they will be as important as Bilbo in this.” Gandalf said calming and Thorin looked over to them, where they sat a bit outside the group with a blanket around them, discussing low. For a moment Thorin and Sandra’s eyes met and he suddenly felt like his legs were being kicked away from under him – what was that?! He suddenly felt nervous, sure that there was something about them that couldn’t be controlled a bit and he looked back at Gandalf, who, to his surprise, smiled. “Give them a chance.” Gandalf said with a calm voice.

“Gandalf, I have a bad feeling about this.” Thorin said low.

“You and your stubbornness…” Gandalf sighed. “If you’re that sure about leaving them, we’re only a day away from Bree.”

“I am sure about that.” Thorin said and turned to walk away.

…

“So, here you have something that will have to suffice till we get to Bree, it’s only for a day.” Thorin said and handed them some clothes – it was a few of their own from the bags, but also some others the dwarves were so kind to let them borrow. “The breeches might be a bit short for you.”

“Bree?” Sandra asked, remembering the name – was Rita speaking the truth, saying they were in Middle Earth?!

“Most likely we’ll only stop to buy supplies and leave you there, depends on the time of the day we arrive.” Thorin said and sat down on a rock in front of them, Rita and Sandra just staring at him. “I thought you’d be glad for clothes.” Thorin said and looked at the clothes they were still holding in their hands.

“You can’t just leave us! We have no idea what to do!” Rita stared at him.

“What good will you do for the company? We’re on a mission with many dangers, and you don’t seem to be trained with weapons, and I don’t think this will be the place for women.” Thorin said calmly.

“Now excuse me!” Sandra looked at him with an insulted look. “I know nature well and am a skilled hunter, and Rita here knows a thing or two about fighting and is also very well trained – you’d be asking for adrenaline while she would just continue running!”

Thorin just stared at them for a moment with slight confusion. “I don’t think he’s heard of adrenaline, Sandra. The science here isn’t the same as home…” Rita whispered before she turned to Thorin. “She means – my stamina is incredible, you’d collapsed long before me.”

“Don’t underestimate a dwarf; we’re good sprinters if necessary.” Thorin said with a serious face and rested his elbows on his knees. “But still I think it will be wisely to leave you in Bree, you’ll get some gold from us so you have something to go on with. Get your clothes on, it will be cold tonight.”

“Do you have our sleeping bags?” Rita asked as Thorin got up to leave them.

“Is that what these are for?” He asked and lifted up one.

“Yes, what did you think they were for?” Sandra asked as he handed it to her.

“Looked like a weird dress to me.” Thorin said and left them.

“I can’t believe it!” Sandra whispered and looked at Rita. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, with Thorin Oakenshield and his company, and Gandalf! And what the hell – they look like the actors, what is this?!”

“I have more problems realizing that it’s Bilbo Baggins sitting over there.” Rita smiled and looked at him from a distance before she turned to Sandra. “Even cuter than in the movies!”

“Cute as hell, but you know I’m looking for masculinity.” Sandra rolled her eyes and facepalmed.

“Then you’re in paradise – I see beard everywhere.” Rita smirked and Sandra knew this would be a long night – or week, or month – it would be long.

*

“So, here you’ll find what you need of clothing. When you’re done, meet us at the Pony, I think Gandalf want a few words with you before you leave.” Bofur smiled and headed across the street to find some more pipe-weed.

“Now this can be interesting – finding clothes in a medieval village.” Sandra lifted her eyebrows as Rita took the lead into the shop, Rita still a bit grumpy after another incidence with Thorin – this time she had panicked as he had asked her to hold Minty’s reins while he double-checked the saddle and the pony had stepped sideways towards Rita while grunting at her. She believed it was a kind of attack and dropped the reins and ran away, scaring Minty and causing her to step on Thorin’s foot, followed by a long string of curses about how disturbing it was with a woman around that couldn’t even handle a horse and he looked forward to get rid of them in Bree and that they made even the hobbit look like a hero, and with that insulting Bilbo as well, and Sandra, as she loved horses and ponies and couldn’t see how she was pointless.

“Come on, you can’t go around with breeches that reach just to your knees.” Rita sighed and walked in.

“I rolled them up to the knees because they stopped at a silly place, making my thighs look long and the calves tiny.” Sandra said to her defence.

…

After quarrelling for a while and convincing the custom that they wanted trousers, shirts and a jacket each and not dresses, they finally got some proper clothing that would keep them warm, and they headed to the Prancing Pony to the company to have a few last words with them. Sandra was especially pleased with her jacket with a corset design, while Renate was totally happy about the fit of her trousers that showed off her hips and belly in a pretty and decent way.

“There they are!” Kili smiled as he spotted them in the door and happily waved his hand to them. He seemed to be one of the few that didn’t mind them at all. Or maybe because of their new outfits.

“A wonder, women done shopping clothes in less than an hour!” Balin smiled and causing the dwarves to break out in laughter and small pouches of money flying across the table – obviously they had made bets on how long time they would use.

“But… breaches?” Dwalin lifted his eyebrows. As he said that, all the dwarves were studying them from top to toe and obviously approved – dwarfish women often used breaches or trousers, but the human women in Middle Earth still stayed to dresses or skirts, so our two young ladies here weren’t exactly main stream.

“Yeah, can’t walk around in dresses either when we’re trying to find our way back home. And, where we come from, women wear a huge variety of trousers.” Sandra said and stood up by the table. “Gandalf, I heard you’d like a few words with us?”

“Yes.” Gandalf said and straightened up a bit there he sat. “I have a few advices for you as you-“

But there he was interrupted by a squeal none of them had predicted, and in the next moment somebody threw herself in Sandra’s arms. “SANDRA!! THANK GOD I FOUND SOMEBODY FAMILIAR HERE!”

“That’s not a hobbit, right?” Ori whispered to Nori.

“No, she has shoes.” Nori said frowning.

“How did you get here?” Sandra asked her friend, Wilhelmina, with big surprise – how the hell did she end up here.

“I have no idea, suddenly I found myself outside the Prancing Pony with these medieval clothes, and I dared to peek through the door and I saw you and Rita.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Is that Thorin and his company?” she asked Rita and pointed at the dwarves.

“Happen to be, yes.” Rita shrugged her shoulders as well.

“Does that mean we’re sent back in time or into a different universe?” Wilhelmina asked them and looked at the dwarves. “They look exactly like they do in Peter Jackson’s movies.”

“We haven’t thought much about it, as we suddenly were taken captured by them and feared a little about our lives for a few hours before we had a common realization that we weren’t dangerous to each other.” Sandra said and looked at the company by Wilhelmina’s comment. “I noticed the PJ similarities yesterday, I’ve tried to figure that out.”

“It does certainly add some bonus cookie points for this weird inception-thingie here.” Rita said and looked at them with an approving look. “But Richard Armitage is 1.88m tall, and Thorin here can’t be more than 1.60m, and then I’m kind – I’m 1.64m!” she pointed out and ignored Thorin’s rolling eyes.

“But… What happens now?” Sandra looked at them.

The company looked confused, but Gandalf stood up and smiled to Thorin. “It seems like my third warrior has arrived.”

“Warrior?!” Wilhelmina said confused. “I’m not a warrior. I hate fights and quarrels!” At this Thorin buried his face in his hands and silently sobbed, but Gandalf just gave him a disapproving look.

“You can be a warrior in many ways, Ms…?”

“My name is Wilhelmina.”

“Weird name as well…” Dori whispered to Nori.

“Gandalf, you can’t be serious?!” Thorin stared at Gandalf in disbelief. “I can’t even spot a scar! At least the others had scars from cats on their hands! Or each other for that sake…!”

“Because I fight my wars with my mouth and wit and not a damned penis-extension of a sword! You can reach far with a brain!” Wilhelmina glared at him. A moment of silence followed at this and she turned to her friends. “Really? Are we going to follow this… jerk to fight a dragon? Sandra, I know you’re fond of bearded men but now I actually have to say that this is madness!”

“Come on, I haven’t said anything against you!” Fili sighed and looked at them with a disapproving face.

“Yeah, just because our uncle suffers under heavy tunnel vision doesn’t mean we’re all jerks!” Kili said and glared at his uncle, who looked like he could kill his nephews with his bare fists.

Soon about two third of the dwarves had agreed and wanted them to come with, the rest just shrugged their shoulders, except Thorin, who looked furious, and Gandalf looked extremely pleased. “Wilhelmina – long live democracy?” Rita smiled and Wilhelmina rolled her eyes.

“At least some of them seem to have a brain…” Wilhelmina mumbled, crossing her arms.

“Well, then it’s decided – you follow us!” Gandalf smiled and Thorin tried to put up a smile that looked more like a painful grimace.

“Come!” Thorin commanded and the Company got up and followed him out. “We better get back on the road again if we’re going to make it in time, especially if Gandalf keep finding us new companions!”

“We’ve been pulled out on an adventure to slay a dragon – what a day! This morning I thought I was going to school!” Wilhelmina sighed.

“And I who was going to relax at home, watch Harry Potter and drink tea…” Sandra sighed.

“And I who had planned to play Sims… My vampire family just got into a fight with the mayor of my sim town…” Rita mumbled.

“You, women!” Thorin shouted back to them. “You need some mounts!”

“My name is Wilhelmina, not woman!” Wilhelmina shouted back, getting quite irritated.

“Believe me, Mr. Grumpy will drive you crazy. Get used to it.” Rita mumbled. She still hadn’t forgiven him for the incident earlier that day.

“Come on, you just happen to pick wrong dwarf to get a ride with!” Sandra lifted her eyebrows and looked at them with a kind smile. “I am sure that if one of you can cool the temper, there’s a nice guy behind that beard!”

“Yes, in your dirty fantasies.” Rita looked back with a disapproving face. “I actually am dead scared of horses – and ponies!” she sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Then you’ll be happy now.” Bofur laughed as Bifur and Oin came down the street towards them with two ponies and one horse.

“Ponies for the petite ones and horse for long-shanks. “Oin said and Wilhelmina and Rita burst out in laughter.

“Said who?!” Sandra said with a voice heavy of insult – she, who was so ordinary in height? And she wouldn’t describe her legs as long and thin either. She was actually very proud of her legs.

“Said Thorin!” Oin smiled and handed her the horse.

“Well, you happen to be the tallest of us, except from Gandalf.” Wilhelmina giggled, enjoying the situation – she loved when people taller than her were sticking out from the crowd, but tried to hide it. Rita felt exactly the same way.

“Damn me and my averages.” Sandra mumbled, but wasn’t angry for long – the horse, a beautiful black one reminded her much of a horse she had tended to a few years ago and her irritation disappeared like mist under the sun. This journey couldn’t be that bad after all!

*

It turned out that most of the dwarves trusted the group of weird young women, as they seemed to have knowledge that could be useful – much thanks to Wilhelmina’s sudden appearance and with that somehow confirming Gandalf’s plan. For once, Sandra was glad to be judged as a group and not individually – she felt safer when in the company of a wizard. Rita on her side, seemed to not bother much, as both options for her seemed to be cruel; meeting an unknown world alone or facing a dragon – at least the dragon could be quite an adventure, and for now she could spend time resting her eyes on Bilbo when nobody was watching her.

Wilhelmina had ended up with a quite loud discussion with Thorin as she hadn’t been able to let go of being called woman, where Thorin explained that he didn’t remember their weird names, and when saying ‘women’, he meant the three of them. Still Wilhelmina were pissed and she were so harsh yet precise when speaking to him that he ended up burying his face in his hands till she was tired of whipping him with hard words. But it turned out he found another way to apologize, and was returned with being forgiven – when Wilhelmina didn’t like the meat in the stew that night, Thorin had been so kind to give her all his vegetables and took the meat himself, instead of commenting her “rabbit diet” as her two friends Rita and Sandra used to tease her about because she wasn’t especially fond of meat in the first place. But when doing as he did, Thorin showed he had empathy and Wilhelmina got over her fury.

Another sign of the trust they suddenly had gained without doing much for it, was that they got a short explanation of the journey and what was ahead. It turned out that they weren’t wrong in their assumptions – somehow, they were tracked in the Hobbit. 

“What kind of a weird dream is this?” Wilhelmina whispered as the three of them sat outside the camp, trying to get over the shock, for the third time.

“I’m starting to believe that I should never have started brewing my own beer.” Sandra said, almost hoping this was just a hallucination caused by an unwanted berry among the juniper berries she added for the taste.

“Then why am I here if this is a hallucination?” Rita asked and frowned. “Do you think we’re being in two places at once, or that we’ve been somehow transported here?”

“And if we’re transported here, will that mean that we’re returning at the same time as we disappeared or have they been missing us for days?” Wilhelmina asked worriedly. “This cracks my nerves, even Gandalf can’t answer properly, he just keep speaking in riddles!”

“Maybe it’s like Narnia!” Sandra suddenly lit up.

“I better hope so.” Rita mumbled and picked up her iPod. “Weird, it seems like it can’t run out of battery here. It’s still full, even my speakers.” She started to browse through it, lost in thoughts.

“At least we have some music then.” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders and then looked at Sandra with a confused face. “When did you start smoking pipe-weed?”

“Today.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “It’s not like tobacco at all! I’m not even coughing!”

“It’s a pipe.” Wilhelmina frowned to Sandra.

“I’ve always said that if I ever was going to smoke, it would be with a pipe.” She smiled. “Like an old seaman, like my grandfather.”

“Oh gosh…” Wilhelmina rolled her eyes. “Where did you get it from?”

“Thorin let me borrow it.” Sandra smiled.

“Why?” Wilhelmina frowned, getting slightly worried.

“I have no idea.” Sandra shrugged her shoulders.

“Comforting. Looks like your love for Richard Armitage is coming true.”

“I’m only borrowing his pipe.” Sandra rolled her eyes. “Besides, I’m like… 15cm taller than him, it’s a bit funny that he barely reaches my chin. And he finds my legs long and thin, considering that he called me spindly-legged, so I doubt he finds me that interesting. I think I stay to borrowing his pipe and have him as eye-candy.”

“First you’re blowing his pipe, and then you’re blowing his staff.” Rita giggled, revealing she had followed their conversation while browsing her iPod.

“I really don’t want to have this conversation…” Sandra rolled her eyes, glad that the company most likely didn’t pay attention. Well, maybe she was inexperienced with men, but she wasn’t untouched either, and she had touched as well – it was just that she was tired of waiting, or being a chicken when she had the chance, so she had given up her hopes of ever find a guy, not to mention getting there.

“Admit it – it’s true.” Rita smirked.

“Says the one who goes for the hairy feet.” Wilhelmina almost sang.

“At least he’s not grumpy and forcing me to ride his horse.” Rita mumbled, making Sandra spit out the water she had just been drinking.

“A ride for a ride, honey!” Sandra laughed and Wilhelmina did the high-hat.

“Sandra, what the hell – the Mighty Jungle?!” Rita almost gasped, Sandra silently saying that she had no idea and Rita turned the speakers on and the melody was softly playing from them. Wilhelmina started to sing and Sandra patted the rhythm on her thighs and singing the chorus. The dwarves turned to see, amused by the sight and the music, laughing at them before Rita suddenly was tackled to the ground.

“TURN OFF YOU FOOL TURN IT OFF!” Kili shouted as he sat on top of Rita and fidgeted with the iPod. “HOW DOES IT WORK?!”

In the next moment Thorin came running and took it from his nephew and stared at it with as much confusion as he realized he had never seen anything like this. “WHAT IS THIS?!”

“Here.” Sandra picked it from his hands, turned off the speakers and muted the iPod. “It’s called an iPod, it’s a tool for playing music and a great source of entertainment in our realm.”

“Now you’re speaking English.” Thorin frowned to her and Kili had walked up behind his uncle and looked at the iPod.

“I’ve done it all the time.” Sandra rolled her eyes.

“Why is it shining?” Kili asked and looked at the screen.

“It’s like a moving picture, showing the name of the songs. And if you switch song…” Sandra let a finger slide across the screen “the picture is switching as well.”

“It’s evil!” Thorin stared at Sandra in fear.

“No, it’s… from the future, sort of.” She sighed and facepalmed.

Rita groaned from the ground and Wilhelmina bent down to her. “Oh god, are you all right?!”

“Yeah, I just think every bone is broken…” she moaned and rubbed her head. “Dwarves are hard, heavy and strong…”

“Oh I am so terribly sorry I just got freaked out and feared wargs would come and-“ Kili spoke this very quickly as he knelt down by Rita and helped her up. “What can I do?” he looked at her with shameful eyes and now Thorin facepalmed by the whole situation.

“Perhaps not crashing her to the ground, would be a good beginning.” Wilhelmina suggested and Rita nodded and brushed the dust off her clothes.

“Can I add that the song was awesome?” Bofur yelled from the fireplace.

“Yay!” Wilhelmina squealed for then noticing Rita’s glare as she rubbed her back. “Sorry.”

“But are you from the future?” Thorin asked them as they walked back to the others.

“That’s the great question, not even Gandalf is sure. He just used that ring to bring him some warriors.” Sandra sighed and sat down on a tree trunk.

Thorin sat down beside her and looked into the fire. “Many things happen, most of them for a reason, but sometimes we’re not supposed to understand why or how. Let time show us what you can bring us and maybe someday we find out how.”

“Damn, you’re philosophic too…!”

*


	2. Run For the Tomatoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So let's see how our girls handles trolls. And orcs. And elves. Lots of them...

Another day went by, another fire was made, another stew made and devoured. Most of them leant back and rested, while Bilbo walked around the camp, seeing how the landscape had changed. Wilhelmina had almost fallen asleep with her head resting on Sandra’s shoulder while Rita had wisely enough, put a headset on the iPod instead of the speakers, but after a while, she took it off and just stared at the starry sky.

“Orcs.” Kili said low, nobody reacting except Thorin, who had been resting peacefully against a rock, immediately sat up and scouted the area around, all tensed.

“Kili, you know how he is…” Fili sighed and looked at his brother who smirked at their uncle, pleased with the reaction.

“You know, being exposed to your fear is the only thing that helps!” Kili whispered as Thorin leant back against the rock he was sitting by, still some sort of nervousness in his eyes.

“Up to a certain level – he will never be the same again after Azanulbizar…” Fili rolled his eyes.

“Why?” Rita asked, as she sat beside them and had observed everything. She kind of knew the story, but she wondered if things changed because of their presence.

“Orcs slaughtering dwarves, guts and blood everywhere.” Fili said and then glared at Kili. “Not to mention that he watched his grandfather being beheaded by the Pale Orc and his father gone missing…”

“So if you say ‘orcs’ when he’s not expecting it, he’ll always sit straight up, look for his sword and scout for any sign of orcs, quite funny!” Kili giggled, earning a hard elbow in his ribs from his brother.

“Sounds like classic PTSD.” Sandra said and Rita nodded.

“PTSD?” Kili asked and frowned in confusion.

“English please?” Fili lifted one eyebrow to them and for a moment they felt completely confused, before they realized they were in Middle Earth.

“Eh… after-tragic-incident-stress-that-can-cause-different-problems-in-your-life-or-weird-reactions-to-things?” Sandra tried and looked at Rita. “In our realm PTSD means post-traumatic stress disorder. Post means after, traumatic is tragic incident or stress.”

“Aaaaah!... I didn’t know that it actually was something.” Kili looked at his brother.

“Come on… Most of our lives we’ve been living with him and you haven’t noticed?” Fili slapped Kili’s head with his palm.

“So you’re saying he reacts to things that remind him of that day?” Sandra asked, looking nervously at Thorin – earlier she had worked with people suffering from heavy PTSD and seen what they could do – but at least they didn’t have big swords, daggers or axes, at the most maybe a kitchen knife.

“It was worse before – imitating an orc scream in our living room could cause him to barricade every door and window.” Fili shrugged his shoulders. “We got used to it, the tendency isn’t the same as before, and he’s almost boring now, compared to what he used to be.”

“Come on, it was funny that one time when he picked up the dog as a shield!” Kili smiled.

“No it wasn’t. And it’s not funny that you keep triggering his so-called PTSD.” Fili rolled his eyes.

“It might explain some of his grumpiness.” Rita said to Sandra, who nodded in agreement. “Just remind me to never say that word within a 10m radius from him.”

*

“Did we just hear what I think we heard?” Sandra whispered as the Company set off into the forest to save Bilbo.

“Trolls have captured Bilbo, and we’re left here to watch the stew so any badgers won’t eat it up.” Rita lifted her eyebrows.

“The worst way of telling women is not fit for combat, ever.” Wilhelmina growled, her hands tight fists as she glared after them.

“I don’t think that was exactly what they meant; I think they’re more worried about the fact that Rita was the only one of us managing to even swing the sword.” Sandra patted Wilhelmina’s shoulder. “And badgers do eat stew if they can get it.”

“I’m just small, okay?” she said to her defence and compared herself to Sandra. “BUT we could have planned a distraction of the trolls, or saved the ponies!”

“Actually, you’re 13cm taller than Dwalin, and he’s the tallest of them.” Rita looked at Wilhelmina. “But once again, we’re not trained for this. I bet the trolls would have eaten us as appetizers.”

“Maybe we should ask for lessons when they come back.” Sandra shrugged her shoulders and sat down on a rock, watching the remaining ponies from a safe distance, afraid there would be more trolls around them.

“Still, the worst insult for today was Gandalf claiming he was the only sane here.” Rita said and sat down beside Sandra.

“That wasn’t an insult, it was the truth.” Wilhelmina said and looked at the two of them, smiling at her statement. “It’s true! And we’re definitely not sane, seen from their point of view!”

…

But after several hours the Company wasn’t back and they started to get worried.

“Maybe we should look for them.” Sandra suggested, worried that they couldn’t even hear a thing.

“Feel free, I’m sitting right here.” Wilhelmina said, not wanting to be out in the forest with trolls around – she had realized Sandra was right and was now scared to death.

“Fine, sit here and watch the stew. I’m going to check.” Sandra got up and set off.

“Wait! You don’t have any weapon?” Rita got up and stared at her.

“I…” Sandra looked around and found a rope. “I have a rope!”

“You’re not Indiana Jones. I’m coming with you.” Rita rolled her eyes.

“You don’t have a weapon either?”

“At least I have a brain.”

“Whatever…” Sandra rolled her eyes and they set off.

“Yeah, you just go, I sit right here!” Wilhelmina smiled and waved her hand before tucking a blanket closely around herself. “Help.”

…

“You’re kidding me.” Sandra whispered and stared at the sight in front of them – the dwarves were tied above the fire, those not being so, were stuffed in a bag each.

“Gandalf, where is he when we need him?!” Rita hissed and hid behind the bush.

“Gandalf…” Sandra whispered and stared at the pitch dark in front of them. Rita looked at her, wondering what her friend was up to. “Come with me!”

…

Sandra crawled out on the branch till she was lying on it, just above the dwarves. She turned to her right, barely seeing the tip of Gandalf’s hat behind a cliff, moving rapidly away from her. She swallowed heavily, moving out a little more. She was glad Bilbo had come up with the idea of leading the trolls’ attention away from the dawn, she just hoped that the dwarves would continue protesting, either they were thinking Bilbo had lost his mind or got his plan.

She looked down, hoping to get the attention to the dwarves to tell them help was on their way, but most of them were busy yelling at Bilbo with fury. Then Balin rolled his eyes and closed them for a moment, like he was thinking he was too old for such adventures, but as he opened them, he stared straight up at her, shock all over his face. She waved her hand, and he quickly kicked Thorin, who answered by glaring angrily at him, but Balin nodded to tell Thorin to look up, and he looked just as shocked as Balin as he spotted her. He silently formed the words ‘I told you to stay behind!’, but she just rolled her eyes, silently trying to tell them Gandalf was waiting for the dawn to turn the trolls to rock, by gesturing a pointy hat, beard, staff, rock, dawn, stone.

Thorin looked at Balin, both of them just as confused as the others. “Follow Bilbo’s game! Time’s up soon!” she hissed and pointed at the hobbit.

Then it dawned on Thorin and he kicked Oin. Oin and Kili stared at Thorin, for then staring at Bilbo. “I have huge parasites!”

“I have parasites as big as my arm!”

Sandra couldn’t do anything else than burying her face in her hands and slowly counting to ten, hoping Rita and Gandalf was moving quickly enough and that the gods were with them. “Tor, give me strength…”

…

“Just a few minutes now.” Gandalf whispered as Rita followed him. “What I need you to do is to whistle as soon as you can see the sun climbing over that ridge.”

“Okay.” She whispered, nervous as never before; she had believed exams were hell, or her practice year as a police student, but she had never before had 14 lives on a stake, not even then.

Gandalf climbed between a few rocks, calculating the angle and Rita felt the minutes fly away, sure that they all were eaten by trolls by the time the fucking sun would climb over that ridge in the distance.

Then, like a blessing, the sun started to throw the first beams of blessed sunlight. She jumped up and whistled to Gandalf and he quickly responded – he jumped up on a rock, proclaiming to the trolls that their time was out and slammed the end of the staff to the rock, making it split and the trolls immediately started to turn to rock.

…

“You are the worst actors I’ve ever seen.” Sandra sighed as she helped them getting out of the stray sacks. “I meant to pretend you were angry at him.”

“Sorry.” Kili mumbled as she undid the knot.

Thorin got up and walked up to Gandalf, looking confusedly at him. “Why did you come back? And where have you been?”

“I was looking ahead, and then I looked behind. And found these two young ladies telling me you were captured by trolls. And Wilhelmina did as you told her, the stew is waiting for you. And thanks to our burglar, you’re still alive.” Gandalf smiled to Thorin, who stood there more confused than ever – this quest had turned out to everything else than he had predicted, so far.

“Buuurn…!” Rita whispered to Sandra, who just poked her back.

Sandra was about to say something, when she looked for Wilhelmina – and found her giggling with Fili and Gloin. She was sitting on Fili’s shoulder, and Fili on Gloin’s, they all laughing and with a silly smile. Then she saw why: with a piece of coal, Wilhelmina drew a musketeer moustache on one of the trolls, and then she spotted that the two others had got as well; one with a thick Mexican one and the other something that reminded suspiciously of Thorin’s beard.

“Oh gods…” Sandra moaned and facepalmed. Rita turned and looked as well, fighting not to laugh and Sandra looked at her, starting to laugh herself. “In the blackest pitches of Helheim, who of them did come up with this?”

“The best thing I’ve seen, ever!” Rita laughed and couldn’t even stand straight and tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh I can’t wait to see Thorin’s face!”

“What about my face?”

Rita turned and looked at Thorin, and then started to laugh again. Thorin wondered what it was and looked at Sandra, silently demanding her to tell, but all she could do, was nodding in the trolls’ direction. He turned to see and his face froze in something that looked like secret amusement covered by disappointment. “Fili!”

“Oh cocks!” they heard Wilhelmina curse. “Thorin, you just ruined the left moustache!”

“We don’t have time for artistic expressing! Prepare to leave!” Thorin said and looked at the troll with his beard. “My beard looks better than that…”

*

“Here, ladies.” Gandalf said and waved with a hand to the ladies. “I think these will fit you better; they’re made by elves, so they’re light and easier to swing for you.” He handed them three swords. “I think the length is better as well.”

Sandra pulled her sword out of the sheath and stared at it with awe. “It’s so light!”

“I can actually swing it!” Rita smiled and did some simple moves with hers.

“Let’s just hope we’ll never have to use them.” Wilhelmina said and adjusted the belt around her waist.

“True that.” Rita sighed and followed her example.

“But thank you so much Gandalf. Did you find them in the cave?” Sandra looked at Gandalf.

“I did, and I hope myself you won’t have to use those swords.” He said and looked warmly at them – they guessed he was worried about them, and they couldn’t do anything else than agreeing with him. “But Sandra, Kili mentioned you did well when trying archery the other day, and I found this, it seems like the bow is fine, and the arrows are still sharp.” Gandalf smiled and handed her a bow and a quiver with arrows.

In the next moment they heard the sound of something big coming towards them at great speed through the forest, and the ladies quickly stepped back as the dwarves leaped forward to defend themselves. Therefore, the surprise was great when a pack of giant rabbits pulling a sled stopped in front of them, with an old man standing behind the sled – Radagast.

“That’s for sure the biggest rabbits I’ve ever seen.” Wilhelmina said and stared at the rabbits pulling the sled.

“Would make some nice stews.” Sandra said approving, earning a hopeless gaze from Rita; after all, Sandra had grown up at a farm, learning animals were food, but to her friends’ great comfort, with the moral that you should always treat the animals as equals, and that they could be good pets and friends. On top of it all, she was a hunter as well. It was just that the combination of these three often resulted in a humour from the gallows, to many of the dwarves great amuse; right now Dori and Bombur were chuckling behind her.

Soon they found themselves listening to Gandalf in silence like the other dwarves, with Rita and Wilhelmina patting the rabbits while Sandra sat on a tree trunk with Bofur, smoking. Rita wondered how it could be that her best friend through ten years, which had never shown any interest in tobacco and didn’t start drinking before she was 18 and suffered only one hangover, suddenly started to smoke pipe weed in the company of dwarves. Though she had to agree with her; it was something completely different than tobacco, it was actually soothing and pleasant, but still she found it a bit awkward when she sat there with Bofur, sharing the same pipe while they listened to the wizards.

Suddenly the hairs on Sandra’s neck rose as she heard something; legs moving slowly through a layer of ferns and undergrowth. Not hard hoofs like a deer, but paws – big paws, with claws scratching the ground beneath ever so lightly and she got a bad feeling; she had heard of wolves and she was told they roamed these lands.

“Bofur, there’s something lurking around in the forest.” She whispered to him, her pulse rising.

He looked at her with a surprised face. “Where?”

“Behind us, somewhere, I guess 10-20m.” she whispered, looking behind her.

He followed her example, listening intensively. “Aye…” He whispered and they turned forwards again and he poked Thorin’s back. “Thorin…!”

“What?” he asked low as he turned to face them.

“There’s something behind us.” Bofur said, and in the next moment they heard growling behind them – then Sandra was pushed aside and crashed to the forest floor, only hearing wild sneering and roaring, before somebody got the creature down.

She sat up again, seeing Gloin wiping blood off his axe while Thorin pulled the sword out of the creatures skull. “A scout!” Thorin hissed and walked up to the wizards.

“You’re being hunted.” Gandalf said and looked at Thorin.

“Captain obvious!” Rita whispered to Wilhelmina, who barely managed to smile as she stared at the dead beast in front of them – it had landed just a meter away from their feet.

A quick discussion followed between the wizards and the dwarf, ending up with the wildest run so far. Rita, that didn’t even feel comfortable with the ponies, cursed their absence and claimed she would never trust any horse or pony again as they seemed to run away when you needed them or getting kidnapped by trolls, concluding with the fact that after all, she’d rather run like this instead of being bothered with them. Fili rolled his eyes, knowing that the episode with trolls was his mistake and blessed that he was a good sprinter.

But soon they were out of luck, it seemed, as they found themselves trapped under a boulder and with a warg on top of it. Wilhelmina bit her nails as Kili stepped out to shoot the warg – the hit was good and it fell, but unfortunately, both the warg and the goblin made too much sound before they finally got it killed, and the warg happened to be killed as Sandra jumped out and used her sword to cut the nerve going from the scull and down the neck. “Sami stab, quickest way to kill an animal if you get a hold on it.” She said and shrugged her shoulders, looking at Thorin who stared at her in awe – she hadn’t even flinched as blood was stained on her, dark red spots and stripes on her face and she looked as calm as she could be. “As I told you, I’m a hunter. I kill animals quickly because I don’t want them to suffer.” She said to them, Balin smiling a little to her, while Dwalin rolled his eyes a little, most likely wanting both the warg and orc to suffer as much as possible – the hate between dwarves and orcs w  
as deep and old. Rita grabbed Bilbo and held him tight as to comfort herself in the tensed situation while staring at the dead warg, almost strangling the poor hobbit when doing so.

Again they leapt out and ran for safer grounds, but soon they found themselves trapped with wargs all around, and even better – Gandalf disappeared, making Thorin yell quite a few things about him abandon them. Kili started to shoot at the wargs, and Sandra ran up beside him to follow his example – the bow was very flexible and she surprised herself with the power each arrow hit their targets with.

Suddenly Gandalf showed up again and revealed that one of the boulders had a hidden crack in it, and he didn’t have to tell them twice to get in there – Rita jumped down without doubting and Wilhelmina soon followed after letting a couple of dwarves go in there before her, until Nori pushed her in front of him and she landed on the rock floor and quickly crawled to the shadows. “What is this place?” she whispered to Nori who had followed her.

“I have no idea. How do we get up again, if there’s no other way out?” he asked back and she wanted to tell him that it lead to Rivendell, but decided to keep her mouth shut.

Outside, Thorin made sure Bombur and Bofur were safely down before he turned to the two archers. “Kili, Sandra! NOW!”

Sandra looked at Kili before they ran towards safety, where he quickly jumped down before her without doubting. She swallowed nervously – she couldn’t see the bottom and she didn’t know what she’d rather do; fight wargs or jumping into pitch black.

Then Thorin grabbed around her waist and pulled her down with him, which led to her holding him tight to avoid panic making her scream out of all the power of her mighty lungs. What was more a five meter long steep slide down under the boulder felt like an eternity to her and she sighed with relief as her feet hit the ground. She quickly got up on her legs and stared up at where they came from before she looked at the others, seeing they were ok and she bent down, taking a few deep breaths. Thorin looked at her from the side and their eyes met as he silently asked if she was ok. She nodded and looked to the ground again.

Then, the sound of elfish horns, hunting horns. The ladies’ faces lit up, while the others looked just confused; the sound of the wargs being fought back and then – silence.

“What now?” Thorin asked and turned to Gandalf.

“Where is this leading?” Balin asked and looked down a narrow way behind them. “Can you see the end?”

Dwalin, who had checked turned back. “No, but it’s leading down here. Should we go?”

“Of course we do!” Bofur said and soon all the dwarves had agreed, and they silently followed the narrow passage. Here and there they could see light above them, but no signs of wargs and they were starting to hope that this would lead them somewhere safe. And it did.

“Rivendell!” Rita gasped to Wilhelmina and Sandra as they suddenly stood by a waterfall and wer++e looking straight at Elrond’s home.

But not everyone was happy; they watched with great interest the quarrel between Thorin and Gandalf which ended up with Gandalf giving a damn in Thorin’s slight hatred against elves.

“Come on, he does have some charm! Just not the kind we might need now…” Sandra whispered to her friends as they followed Gandalf.

“Yeah, the charm that could take you to the bed!” Rita hissed back, totally agreeing with Gandalf about the issue.

“Hey! My point is that it would be wrong saying he had no charm, like he did!” Sandra rolled her eyes.

“My dear trombonist: this is a battle you will lose.” Wilhelmina smiled to Sandra.

“Losing it with no majesty at all!” Rita giggled and Wilhelmina did the high-hat while Sandra rolled her eyes. She was really going to hear about it all the way.

At least that discussion was forgotten as they suddenly found themselves surrounded by elves. Rita looked just as uncomfortable as the dwarves, but that was mostly caused by the fact that the elves were sitting on horses. Sandra and Wilhelmina just stood there and wondered why every soul in Middle Earth, including the elves, either made a fuzz about everything or lacked the ability to add two and two. “Come on, the wargs were hunting. There were tracks of a bunch of dwarves, a hobbit and four men… And those happen to stand here now…” Sandra sighed.

“I thought elves had a sharp vision.” Wilhelmina sighed, seeing Sandra’s point. “I don’t see the surprise here, it would be more likely with ‘oh, there they are!’ but nooo. They go all ‘oh my god, there’s dwarves in Rivendell, what the hell?!’ Fuck logic.”

“We might be too intellectual.” Sandra snickered, while Bifur rolled his eyes and gestured to Bofur and mumbled something in Khuzdûl and Bofur just patted his cousin’s shoulder and mumbled something back. “Though, there is one positive thing about this.” Sandra whispered low.

“And that is…?” Rita lifted her eyebrows in expectation. Wilhelmina leant in closer, getting bored by the situation.

“Look at the dwarves. They’re scared. And they look cute when they’re scared!” Sandra whispered with a smile and they all looked around.

“Hell yeah!” Wilhelmina said and smiled.

“Why are you smiling?” Dwalin looked over his shoulder at them, and Thorin did so for a short moment before he focused on Elrond again.

“You see my point?!” Sandra grinned, while Dwalin looked like some anger was shining through the hatred and fear. “Daw!”

“Oh god…” Rita sighed and facepalmed.

“Look at Ori and you see what I mean.” Sandra said and nodded in Ori’s direction.

“Ok, you’re right!” Rita’s face softened.

Fortunately, the situation soon calmed down, though with a few harsh words, especially after Elrond said something in elfish. “Why did he have to say that one thing in elfish when he so easily could have said it in the common tongue? I understand their reaction!” Rita rolled her eyes a little.

“Discrimination, that is!” Sandra sighed.

“Don’t worry, they calmed down as soon as they heard the word ‘dinner’, so this can be… interesting.” Wilhelmina lifted her eyebrows.

And she was right; some of the dwarves just ate the food without questioning it, while others missed the salted meat. When Ori made a number out of the salad, Rita just grabbed it and ate it without question – she tried the best she could to not change her food habits too much, especially when she was used to hard training and healthy food at the police academy. “Rabbit…” Ori said and lifted his eyebrows as he watched her eat, before he continued his search for chips.

It all turned out with Rita being the most pleased at all, as she soon got all the salad from the others. “The best cherry tomatoes in a long while.” She smiled as she had found an especially tasty one.

“The sugar peas aren’t bad either, try!” Sandra smiled and threw it down the table to Rita, who caught it in the air with a lazy move with her hand.

“You two are really adopting the dwarfish ways.” Wilhelmina said with admiration while chewing on a carrot.

“Way funnier than the picky, fine way at home.” Rita smiled and took a bite of the sugar peas, a huge grin on her face. “Indeed, tasty!”

“How can they describe vegetables as tasty?!” Gloin looked at Bombur, who just ate everything near enough. “Nevermind…” Gloin sighed as he knew Bombur wasn’t the right one to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far the girls have made it. Will they make it further?


	3. the Mighty Jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, they make it to Rivendell. How will the journey proceed? Will they get the answers they need? Will their modern stuff affect anything? Will they sing and dance? STAY TUNED AND READ
> 
> (I should go to bed now)

“Holy mother of God, this is Rivendell!” Rita squealed and ran around the room Elrond had offered them, admiring the view from every window, leaning over the reeling of the balcony.

“Be aware of your company.” Wilhelmina mumbled from the corner of her mouth, observing the weird looks she was given from the dwarves.

“She’s lost her mind, hasn’t she?” Gloin looked at Rita with a worried face as she almost had tears in her eyes.

“Aye, looks like the lass have seen her better days, eh?” Bofur said and checked if the sausage he was frying was warm enough.

“Rita!” Sandra shouted, making her stop. “You know – you remember the one time I got drunk and told a certain who about my heathen belief?”

“Yes?” Rita looked at Sandra with a confused face.

“You’re kind of doing the same thing now.” Sandra smiled with lifted eyebrows and Rita immediately sat down behind her.

“She’s not drunk?” Fili frowned to Sandra.

“Don’t worry, I guess she can’t hold elfish wine that good.” Sandra smiled innocently at them.

“Told you there was something suspicious about the wine!” Oin whispered to Dwalin who nodded, looking at Rita with serious and slightly worried eyes.

“What about a walk?” Wilhelmina smiled to the other girls and they quickly got up.

…

“Dumb ways to die lesson 43: squeal about how amazing Rivendell is when surrounded by dwarves!” Sandra rolled her eyes.

“Come on Sandra, it truly is stunning to be here!” Rita turned to her friend.

“It is, but I don’t dare showing that to the dwarves.” She said, stepping aside to let an elf walk by and admired her moves. “They truly are tall and graceful.”

“But not majestic!” Wilhelmina said with a proud voice and they burst out in laughter. “That page isn’t majestic enough for his majesty!”

“You’re right, we should tell him if we ever get back home.” Sandra smiled and they stopped by a creek and watched the water fall down over the cliffs.

“Well, if I could stay here, I wouldn’t mind not going home.” Rita smiled.

“I think I’d go to the Shire.” Wilhelmina smiled warmly and sat down on a bench. “We need to go there before we go home.”

“Agreed.” Rita smiled, then looking at Sandra, who sat down beside Wilhelmina. “What is it?”

“Where should I go then?” she asked, looking at the water. “I saw Aragorn as we arrived here, but he’s only 10 years old by now. I’m not pedobear.”

“That’s young.” Wilhelmina said and looked at Sandra as well. “Maybe Rohan, you like horses!”

“Yeah, sounds fair enough!” she smiled. “Or maybe Gondor, or… I truly don’t know.”

They heard heavy and hurried steps behind them and as they turned to see, they saw Thorin and Balin returning. “We leave before the sun shines.” Thorin said shortly to them.

“Excuse me-“ Wilhelmina said and the two dwarves stopped. “But are you sure we have enough food to cross the mountains?”

Thorin looked at her, seeing that she actually meant to cross the mountains with them. Wilhelmina and Rita walked over to them, but Sandra just sat there, but looking as determined as the two others. Thorin now realized that they were willing to do whatever needed for the quest.

“Sure, I’ve made rations for the three of you as well.” he said calmly and nodded to them. They started to head back, one last look at Sandra as the four of them headed back – they guessed Sandra had a moment where she needed to be alone with her thoughts and they didn’t blame her.

Thorin started to walk back with the others, but as he didn’t hear her following him, he stopped and looked back. She sat there, leaning her elbows on her knees and with her hands folded and he got the feeling that he should ask her what was going on.

He walked back to her and sat down beside her looking her up and down before resting his eyes on her hands. “What is bothering your mind?” he asked calmly.

“If I can’t get back home – where should I go?” she turned and looked at him. “I don’t belong anywhere here.”

He sighed, not knowing the answer himself and a long moment of silence followed. “If you help us reclaiming Erebor, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind letting you stay there till you made up your mind.” He said low and looked her in her eyes – they were almost the same height now when sitting like this. “We would owe you that and it would be my pleasure to offer you that kindness after such deeds.”

“I say yes to your kind offer.” She smiled to him – inside her mind, she wondered what the hell she was saying yes to; well, she was familiar with mountains and stuff, but she had never been inside one, and her fear for dark, narrow places was still very real. All those things this dwarf made her do.

“Good.” He smiled and got up, patting her hands with his in a gentle move as he did so – and stopped. He turned back to her, amazed by how warm her hands felt. He let them rest there for a moment, before their eyes met and he pulled away again. “Come, we should get some sleep.”

Sandra slowly got up, surprised by the moment seconds away – what was that?

*

They finally camped as most of the company refused to walk any closer to the mountain in this weather and they found a cave where they could have a chance of making a fire and warm their bodies, as their clothes were soaking wet by the massive amount of rain pouring over them like waterfalls from the sky.

“Finally…” Kili sighed and crashed down beside Wilhelmina.

“We could need some good music. Bofur, where’s the flute?” Fili shouted and looked around, for then getting the flute thrown in his face, followed by Bofur’s laughter as he rolled around on the floor laughing.

“Good aim!” Kili laughed loudly as Fili glared at them. “Come on brother, play us some music!”

“Or if I could try?” Wilhelmina smiled innocently to them and Fili handed it to her with a smile. Soon she was playing different melodies she either made up or knew from before and the mood in the group was getting better, everyone forgetting about the cold and wet weather.

After a while she put it down and silence followed. Then Bofur started humming on a melody and Wilhelmina started to play that, making Rita facepalm. “I’m never getting away from those lions in the jungle, am I?”

“In the jungle, the mighty jungle, where lions sleep tonight!” Sandra started to sing and soon Bofur was singing along with her, Wilhelmina improvising the melody on the flute but soon got a grip on it.

Sandra continued to sing, learning Kili the text as well and Bofur got up on his legs, dancing around and singing with. Rita ended up staring at him in shock as he stood there and danced while singing passionately with a big smile on his lips, while Wilhelmina tried her best to not end up laughing while playing, Kili singing the text with Bofur while Sandra did the chorus.

“What… What is this? A party song from your realm?” Dwalin asked Rita as she buried her face in her hands.

“They might say yes, I will call it torture.” She moaned and looked at him with begging eyes.

Suddenly she heard someone hum the tune beside her and she turned to see who it was, seeing it was Thorin. For once there was something resembling a smile on his face while he warmed a sausage over the fire and Rita got enough. She grabbed her blanket and hit him as hard she could, making him fall of the rock he sat on and trying to fight out of the blanket.

Dwalin’s laugh was almost a roar as he tried to not fall over by laughter, Bofur had stopped dancing around because he rolled on the ground, laughing, but Thorin did not look happy. “What was that for?!” he stared at Rita and picked up his sausage, staring at it and then held it in front of her face. “You even got dirt on my sausage!”

“That was for all the cruel pony-moments and for humming that damn melody! I couldn’t hold back anymore, I had to take out my frustration on you!” she hissed and pulled her hair.

“You really don’t like ponies, do you?” Thorin mumbled and rubbed the dirt away from the sausage – with her blanket.

“Wow, did you really figure out that yourself, or was it the sound of my screams and the hit of my blanket that forced some intelligence into your brain?!” she hissed even louder and stared at him.

“All of them.” Thorin lifted his eyebrows to her.

That was enough for her – she snapped the stick with the sausage out of his hands and quickly licked all over the sausage and took a bite of it and glared at him. “You can have mine, you just have to warm it first. By the way, it was warm all through, just perfect.”

Thorin stared at her before he sighed and picked up another one, just sending her one angry glare as she handed him the stick.

“Run my Thorin, you run now Thorin, Rita hunts tonight!” Bofur sang and got up again, dancing away from the fire to keep her on a safe distance. “Run my Thorin, you run now Thorin, Rita hunts tonight!”

“CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SINGING THAT MELODY NOW?! SANDRA, YOU SHALL PAY FOR THIS PRANK!”

*

Another day went by, and they were by now standing by the foot of the mountains, a huge, grey and black mass partly covered by mist. “Wow, and we’re supposed to get over this…?” Wilhelmina whispered to Kili.

“No problem, you’re in the company of dwarves.” He smiled to her, but it didn’t comfort her – she had a bad feeling about this, knowing what lived in those mountains.

Slowly they started the way up along the mountainsides, where Rita had no problems at all, as she was both well trained and almost literally grown up in mountains at home. Wilhelmina had no sense of direction and preferred streets and roads, and Sandra preferred forests and flat lands. Ironically, they all had grown up at the same place, which some of the dwarves found amusing; Oin wondered if it had something with genes to do, while Balin meant it was all about a matter of parentage and they came to the conclusion that parents not taking their kids out on any activities, would breed individuals that had no abilities outdoor and with that insulted Wilhelmina.

After a while, Rita noticed that Sandra seemed to be studying something about the dwarves. “What has your eye spotted?” she asked from where she walked behind Sandra.

“You know, dwarves take great care of their beard to make sure it looks right – yet I haven’t seen any of them doing anything about it and we’ve been travelling with them for five days now, and it has grown.” She frowned to Rita. “Are they giving a damn about it now?”

A minute later they reached a place where the track they followed widened out a little and made a safe shelf on the mountainside. Thorin stopped and looked around and then at the dwarves. “Bearding time!” he shouted and a smile broke out on all of the dwarves’ faces as they put down their backpacks and found what they needed. The three ladies stood there like living question marks and observed the dwarves – some sat down and carefully removed the braids and combed the beards, while some sat down in pairs and helped with the trimming, or helping with the braids. Rita and Wilhelmina looked at Sandra, like they were accusing her for making this happen.

“Haven’t you seen a guy taking care of his beard before?” Bofur asked them as he saw their surprised faces.

“No.” Rita and Wilhelmina said and shook their heads.

“Well, I helped my brother for a few weeks as he broke his arm, but no, not in this scale, not with braids and stuff.” Sandra said and shrugged her shoulders.

“Then you could perhaps offer a helping hand?” Thorin said as he had made sure it was a proper place to make camp as well.

“Well, I guess I could” Sandra stuttered and fought to not blush as Wilhelmina poked Rita who was about to make a comment.

“And maybe Rita and Wilhelmina would make a fire and start preparing the meal?” Thorin said and looked at them and they quickly nodded and turned to do as they were told.

As Thorin headed for a place to sit down, she turned and saw Rita and Wilhelmina making a fireplace while they silently giggled. Sandra rolled her eyes and followed Thorin and was handed a comb and scissor. “It should be sharp enough, you soon find out.”

“Okay.” She said and seated so she was close enough. “Just cutting it a little, so the length is the same?”

“Yes, just be careful with the moustache.” He said and looked at something behind her. She started to comb it and soon she was carefully cutting with the scissor. After the first tries, she got a grip on it and soon she was working her way round without thinking much about it, and she found that the moustache was the least problem – maybe she had helped her brother, but then they had a shaving machine, but she realized the difference was nothing more than the lack of electricity.

“Should we do anything about the neck?” she asked as she was done and checked the result with the comb.

“Just cut it a little, a bit shorter than the rest so there is a smooth changing in length.”

“Well, lift your chin then!” she smiled and placed a finger under his chin, not seeing the pleased smile on his lips as she was too focused on her mission.

…

“Rita, I really think there is something going on between Sandra and Thorin.” Wilhelmina whispered as she was warming some sausages in a pan.

“It’s no wonder; beard, dark hair, blue eyes – just up her street. The only thing he’s lacking is height, but he’s got so much masculinity and hair that it doesn’t matter that he barely reach up to her chin.”

“I was expecting majesty, not masculinity.” Wilhelmina snickered and turned the sausages.

Rita leant back against the tree and picked down a branch with tree beard. “Well, isn’t that the same in this case?” she smiled and twisted the tree beard between her fingers.

“More or less, yes.” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders. “And you have to admit it, no matter how much you despise him, he’s a responsible guy that only want this to succeed with no missing limps. If I haven’t got him wrong, the real reason he doubted us joining them, was simply our lack of training with weapons. This reminds me, that he wants us to practice with swords later, with Dwalin, Fili and Kili.”

“And he doesn’t want us to be missing limps… They’ll pluck them off us like fire sticks.” Rita snickered. “Which will lead to Sandra getting injured somehow and we’ll have to live with Thorin being over-protective like a goose. This keeps getting better and better!”

“Thanks, now I imagined a goose with beard…!” Wilhelmina said and tried to strangle her laughter. “But – do you think there is something going on between them?” Wilhelmina said and actually looked a bit worried. “I mean, we don’t belong here and there must be a way home, won’t this end up with lots of tears and Simon and Garfunkel on repeat? Or better, ‘Let it Be’?”

“She’s been blushing around him since the second day, and, I haven’t told her this yet, but he’s been resting his eyes on her at every chance.” Rita shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get back either, so if that’s the case, let the dogs fuck, they’re not mine.” She looked over to where Sandra and Thorin sat, him checking the beard with his hands, before smiling and patting her shoulder as he got up. Rita had noticed he didn’t smile much, he was actually very good at being grumpy and growling, but to Sandra, it wasn’t difficult to smile.

“You’ve got a point there.” Wilhelmina sighed and then spotted the tree beard between Rita’s fingers and quickly fished up the box with tooth pickers from the bag and grabbed the tree beard and quickly twinned it to shape and then pinned it to a sausage. “Behold, this is what I call a majestic sausage!” she said and held it up with a fork, showing a sausage with a wonderful moustache.

Rita immediately broke out in loud laughter, getting curious and surprised looks from the other dwarves. “Nothing to see here!” Wilhelmina said and Rita fought to stay calm. Wilhelmina quickly collected more tree beard and soon the two of them attached beards and moustaches to the sausages, giggling and throwing short glances at every dwarf now and then.

…

“Ah, nothing’s like a good meal after a long day!” Dwalin smiled and was handed a bowl with stew and a sausage, and he hungrily picked up the spoon and started to eat. He didn’t notice anything till he was about to take a bite of the sausage, and saw a beard at the end of it. “What?!”

“Haha, looks like your beard!” Bofur laughed loudly and fell off the stone he was sitting on, and Dwalin started to laugh himself.

Soon all of the dwarves discovered that their sausages had beards and moustaches looking like their own, to the great amusement for the entire group. “Though I don’t see anything on yours.” Dori said and looked at Rita.

“Do you see any facial hairs on my face?” she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

*

Wilhelmina wondered what the hell she had done to deserve a day like this as she had awoken, tumbling down a tunnel inside the mountain itself; first, they had woken up to bucket loads of rain, and as they set off, Thorin were grumpier than ever and by that confirming Wilhelmina’s theory that he suffered from mps; men period syndrome. Not only that, but it turned out that a thunderstorm was above them as Nori was almost hit by the lightning as he was climbing up a boulder to see where the track led them. As they thought it couldn’t get any worse, it turned out that the thunderstorm had awoken stone giants, and for a moment Wilhelmina had believed that she and Sandra would get smashed against the mountainside as the giant they stood on tumbled and crashed. It was then Thorin’s mps reached a new level as he had to save Bilbo and almost got himself killed, and the mood among the company was as low as it had never been before as they found an empty cave to seek shelter in and Wilhelmina hoped to wake up to a bett  
er day, with no lightning, no rain, no mps or stone giants.

Well, she was mistaken – it had barely begun. She crashed onto the ground and soon she was at the bottom of a pile of shocked dwarves, a hobbit and two other girls that were as startled as her. She didn’t have to tell them to get off her though – within seconds goblins were all over them and pulling them with along paths and bridges that looked like they could give in for the weight in any moment.

“What happened?!” Wilhelmina groaned, wondering what on earth brought them down there.

“The ground just disappeared!” Dori grumbled, trying to get free from the goblins.

“A fucking trap…!” Sandra growled and spat on a goblin that had gripped her arm way too hard, earning her a smack in the face, resulting in her banging it down with her forehead, only leading to more goblins grabbing her. “For fucks sake!”

“Stop fighting them!” Rita begged and looked at Sandra with a disapproving look. “At least Thorin is in good company now in Club Grumpy…”

“No wonder!” Sandra spat back – it turned out she was among those reacting with fury and a will to fight, but she soon realized it was better keeping her head cool and she did as Rita told her.

It turned out they needed to stay cool as well as they were brought to the great goblin – an uglier and more foul creature they had never set their eyes on before. The three ladies stood there among the dwarves with shocked faces and Rita got a sinking feeling in her belly; they had been unarmed by the goblins, and how on earth was she going to get anything to fight with?

“So, what are dwarves doing in my mountain?” the great goblin asked and climbed down from his throne, glaring at them with evil eyes. “And not only dwarves! Are they companied by ladies?” he smirked and before they got to react, he grabbed Sandra’s hair and pulled her out in front of them. “Even human…!” he laughed and looked at her with a big, mocking smile. “So what gives a human woman reason to join dwarves?”

Sandra couldn’t find herself able to speak as the pain from being held up by her hair was too much to bear and just closed her eyes and focused on breathing. The great goblin laughed and pushed her back to the dwarves before presenting rather uncomfortable news; Azog the Defiler was very much alive and wishing nothing else than seeing Thorin’s head on a plate after putting him through endless pain. Wilhelmina swallowed heavily, wondering if she died here, would she be dead back home then? They had to go through both kicking and whipping and with a heavy heart Sandra thought at least she died fighting like her ancestors once appreciated.

Then, out of nowhere, a massive and blending light shone and they were all falling and trembling. For a moment Sandra’s eyes burned before they got used to the dark again and she slowly sat up again, and to her great joy she saw Gandalf. She quickly added two and two and reached out for the weapons close to her and started to throw them back to the company before grabbing her own sword, and realized she had never used it; by the look on Rita and Wilhelmina’s faces, she guessed they both had the same realization.

“Quickly, this way!” Gandalf shouted to them, and soon they were on the wildest run they had experienced, at least the three ladies. They tried to stay in the middle, but soon the group split in two, and Sandra found herself separated from Rita and Wilhelmina. She found herself running just behind Thorin, and she thought to herself, sarcastically; ‘if I die know, at least I die with something nice in my view’.

Rita quickly realized that she had no idea how to use the sword, but it had the same length as something she was familiar with, as the police student she was; batons. Suddenly she had to fight herself as she and Wilhelmina was surrounded by five goblins and Rita turned her rage mode on; the goblins had no chance against her fury and Wilhelmina stared in admiration as they ran further on, and she wasn’t alone – Kili’s jaw had dropped.

Soon Sandra had to fight herself; she and Thorin were suddenly surrounded as well, and he majestically swirled and the sword took down two goblins. She had no idea what she was doing and let the instincts take over and attacked the goblins with rage and swung her sword aggressively against the two remaining goblins and to her surprise she had managed to slice them into several pieces. Thorin looked at her with a frown as they ran to catch Gandalf and his group. “Disgusting. Keep it that way!”

“I’d rather get out…” she mumbled under her breath.

The groups were reunited and after that Sandra and Wilhelmina did what they could the best; run. Rita, on the other hand, had become a berserker and ran at the front with Fili and Dwalin, roaring more than the two of them combined, jumping, kicking and slicing. They couldn’t believe that she had turned into a master butcher and decided to just let her go on – she seemed to have gotten the grip on this.

The flight suddenly stopped at a bridge as the great goblin popped up again out of nowhere. Gandalf fixed that, but the only problem was the massive weight of the monster the goblin was; the bridge couldn’t hold it and collapsed, sending them on a wild race down the deep ravine and into darkness and for a while the only thing to be heard were their own screams and curses. From Sandra a constant stream of juicy Norwegian curses followed, while Rita, who had promised to curse less stayed to screaming. Wilhelmina just held tight to the closest thing she found, which happened to be Bofur, and closed her eyes while apologizing for all her sins.

Suddenly they stopped and the bridge collapsed leaving them at the bottom of the ravine like a sandwich consisting of wood and dwarves, slightly spiced with women. “Now that wasn’t bad!” Kili smiled and started to wriggle himself free.

His smile quickly disappeared as the corpse of the Goblin King crashed on them. “You got to be kidding me!” Kili now shouted.

“Bombur, I don’t mean to offend you, but…” Sandra groaned from under the heavy dwarf. “You’re very heavy, I can’t breathe!”

“Oh I’m so sorry!” he said and got up and helped Sandra out. “Nothing’s broken?”

“No, don’t think so…” she smiled and patted his shoulder. “Just squeezed.” She finished and started to help the others out.

“Now this is going to get interesting.” Wilhelmina suddenly said and the others looked up, seeing the goblins coming down towards them in an incredible speed.

“Oh fuck.” Fili said and with that earned a surprised look from his brother. “I’m influenced.” He said and nodded towards Sandra as they started to run; it was true – she was a master in cursing and had learned them some words stronger than the harshest dwarfish ones. Burnfuck being one of them.

But they were close to freedom; they could smell fresher air and Gandalf seemed to know where the closest way out was, and a few minutes later they stood outside the mountain, but they didn’t dare to stop before they were deep into the forest.


	4. Stilettos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So the road goes ever on and on, and they meet Azog again. But he's changed a little (Pickle, all the things you make me write!).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should update my tags, to something like "Azog in suspicious outfits" or "Pinkie Azog." I better do so. After all, it's a CRACKfic

Sandra sat down on the ground as the group stopped, gasping for air – she couldn’t remember that she had ever ran that much in such a short time. Wilhelmina joined her, while Rita seemed to still be in the mood of slaying.

Wilhelmina dropped back on the ground and closed her eyes, only to open them as she heard Thorin starting to rant about what he thought of Bilbo. “Sandra, tell me – how could you find that vile dwarf attractive?”

“Well, that is the non-attractive part about him…” she groaned and facepalmed.

“Oh god, will he ever get over the bitter I-hate-everything-constipation?!” Rita moaned, a bit too loud – all the dwarves, including Thorin, turned towards her. “Nothing, I was talking about someone… else…” she mumbled as she saw Thorin turn his angry gaze towards her.

“So, that’s what you think about me?” he said low and walked towards her. “That I’m too old and too bitter for this?”

“I didn’t call you too old…” Rita said and lifted one eyebrow to him. “Though that wouldn’t be-“ she was gagged by Wilhelmina, who had jumped up to silence her so she wouldn’t become a head shorter, considering Thorin’s gaze.

“Don’t forget you’re among the lost ones here.” Thorin hissed.

“Now excuse me!” Rita spat as she pushed Wilhelmina away and angrily crossed her arms across her chest. “You lost your way twice in the Shire, and you can’t even read your grandfather’s map and you call me a lost person??” she glared at him, but her insulted glare was nothing compared to the one Thorin shot her.

Bofur coughed carefully and walked up to her, laying an arm on her shoulder and starting to pull her away.“Rita, I think we should go down here.” He smiled and then looked over the shoulder and spoke louder. “It’s a wonderful view down here!”

“Just as weak as any other human…” Thorin growled under his breath as he turned away.

“Did you call me weak?!” Rita now hissed.

“Excuse me Rita – us as well!” Wilhelmina shouted and sat up.

“Now he even insulted me!” Sandra got up on her legs. “I demand an excuse on the behalf of all four of us!”

“Four? You’re three, did you lose your ability to count in there?” Thorin said in disbelief.

“I’m speaking for Bilbo as well!” Sandra spat.

“Yeah, not his fault that you’re being a douche towards him, I don’t blame him for longing back home.” Wilhelmina said and rolled her eyes.

“Believe me – I would have ran back home after day one if I could, but Gandalf here insists that there is some magic reason I have to help you get back your lost home. He can’t even tell me how to get away from you!” Rita said and did a rude hand gesture towards Thorin and now even Gandalf facepalmed.

“Now, it isn’t that bad, but I would love to not hear any insults and grumpy mumbling for just one day.” Sandra rolled her eyes.

“I can’t recall throwing any insults in your direction?” Thorin asked Sandra.

“Unless just calling me weak because of my origin, no. But I’m not very fond of negativity in general, it does something with the mood. It’s called group dynamic, if you’re familiar with that.” She bit back – okay, she was a bit angrier at him than she was comfortable with.

“I can’t believe this!” Thorin walked up to Gandalf. “Of all helpers you could find, you happened to find a group of deserters and whiners!”

“Now we’re deserters too.” Wilhelmina looked at Sandra and Rita. “I suggest we go back and find Bilbo and leave poor Thorin alone so we don’t bother him anymore, and he can rot in Mirkwood without any burglar to get him out.”

Thorin turned and stared at them – did they know more about this than they had told him? He hadn’t even told that about that part of the route! “What do you know about Mirkwood?!”

“Enough to not wanting to go in there without Bilbo.” Sandra crossed her arms across her chest. “Shall we leave?” she turned to the other girls.

“You don’t have to!” a familiar voice shouted – the girls were relieved to see Bilbo, and as he explained his reasons for returning, Rita was struggling to not fall over laughing at Thorin’s face that had a small hint of embarrassment. That urge to laugh was quickly strangled though.

A howling warg was heard, and soon they had no other choices than to run as fast as they could and find a safe tree. It was just that none of the trees were really safe, and it didn’t take long before the domino game ended up with all of them dangling from one single tree hanging out from the cliff. It seemed like their situation couldn’t turn any more extreme than what it was at the moment; Sandra was struggling to hang on to a branch, helped by Wilhelmina, while Rita had just pulled her safe up to safety.

Then he showed up – Azog. The horrible pale orc revealed a smile of disgusting teeth behind his blood red lips, and his mocking words were burning Thorin that was already shocked to see that he was alive. Before they knew it, Thorin was on his legs and running towards him, his shield up and his sword drawn. They watched in horror as Azog’s warg jumped over Thorin and forced him down on the ground. Thorin tried to get up again but the warg bit over him and shook him like a doll, giving him wounds that could be fatal.

As the warg dropped him down by Azog’s command, Thorin crashed down on the ground and didn’t move, just looking at Azog as he approached him, stomping on boots with high, sharp heels. “Oh Thorin, revenge is sweet.” The orc mocked and knelt in front of him, his very short pants tight around his thighs and gently tilted his head, his long, blonde locks blowing in the wind.

“You should be dead” Thorin hissed, but his voice was weak by the wounds he had gotten.

…

Rita looked at Sandra – Sandra was fighting to not fall down from the tree, helped by Wilhelmina who held her jacket, but Rita had somehow got free and looked at them now, her face a mix of shock and disgust. “Tell me – is Azog’s boots actually stilettos??”

“Oh Jesus!” Wilhelmina’s eyes widened. “I see there are some details Peter Jackson didn’t include!”

“Don’t you dare letting me fall because of an orc in stilettos!” Sandra hissed as she feared Wilhelmina would lose her grip in shock.

…

“No, I’m just… defiled.” Azog smiled and let his claw hand remove the fringes of hair on Thorin’s face, seeing the hatred grow stronger in them. “You’re even more beautiful than I remember. Time has been kind to some of us.” Azog whispered and looked at Thorin with lusty eyes and the wind blew his long, blonde hair away from his face.

“Why don’t you just kill me right now and save us from this constant war?” Thorin spat, trying to move away but his body refused to follow his will.

“Because I don’t want you to die away from me, yet.” Azog murmured, earning some shocked looks from the group in the tree. Azog took a deep breath, the badger print stretched on his pink tank top, before he turned Thorin over on his side so he could easier see him, ignoring the painful grunts from him. “For now, you shall obey every single order from me. Every.” Azog got up, took a few steps away to look at the group with a mocking smirk. “Every order, he shall obey!”

“Wow, that lipstick!” Sandra commented from where she was dangling from the branch.

“You’re literally hanging above your certain death and the one thing you think about is lipstick?!” Gloin growled to her, fighting to keep his brother from falling.

“Oh for fucks sake!” Rita moaned and got up to walk up to Thorin and Azog, ignoring the desperate protests from the company. “Please, don’t do anything yet, I have an advice for you, defiler. Pale orc. Azog.” She said and stopped a few metres away from Azog. “That’s not how you walk with stilettos.” Azog stared at her in confusion. “They’re supposed to make your legs look longer, more elegant and therefore a more elegant way to walk. You’re not elegant, you’re literally stomping on them!”

“So how do you walk on them, woman?” Azog spat in her direction, insulted by the fact that she had just walked up to him and complained about his style.

“Uhm, now I don’t have stilettos at the moment, but I shall try to show you.” She said and pretended to have high heels and showed him how to walk with them, elegantly swinging her hips and placing one foot in front of the other. “Your weight on the toe, not the heel!”

“I see.” Azog said, having observed her for a minute or so while she showed how to walk with stilettos and explained. He found that he liked her, she seemed to like his style, she just improved it.

“Don’t step down with your heel first, but your toe.” Rita said and demonstrated again.

“So, that will also make it easier?” Azog said thoughtful and rubbed his chin.

“Yes. I think it helps to swing the hips as well, the movements are flowing better then.” Rita said, not paying attention to poor little Bilbo that had ran up to Thorin who now lied unguarded from Azog, as he was busy learning how to walk with high heels.

“Like this?” Azog asked and did exactly as Rita had shown him.

“Yes! That’s perfect!” she squealed and clapped her hands.

“This is so much better, thank you!” Azog smiled proudly, and turned to walk back to Thorin, but stopped as he saw Bilbo standing between them, pointing Sting at him. “You look like you need stilettos. And a proper punishment.” He said and looked down on Bilbo.

“No thanks.” Bilbo said and stared at Azog in disgust.

“You would look taller.” Azog put his hands on his hips.

“I’m scared of heights.” Bilbo frowned.

“HNNGAAAAAAH!”

The scream of the dwarves attacking the wargs and orcs caught them off guard and in the next moment Rita had to duck down from a warg leaping at her. For a few moments it was total chaos, but then help came from above – the eagles. While orcs fled here and there, trying to behead someone on the run Wilhelmina ran up to support Bilbo, while Thorin barely could keep his eyes open. “Don’t worry, it will sort out.” Wilhelmina said and drew her sword. In the next moment, a warg leapt towards them, but Bilbo was quick and the sword did the job as he somehow managed to pierce the skull of it. While he fought to get the sword out, Thorin passed out.

“Woah, I think it was quite a shock to him.” She lifted her eyebrows as she looked at Bilbo while she took off her scarf and tried to stop the bleeding from a wound on Thorin’s chest. “Damn, I hate this wolf fur cloak, impossible to do first aid!”

“Try to go under it, maybe that will help.” Bilbo suggested.

“Easy for you to say – I bet he’s twice my weight with all that armour!” Wilhelmina said between gritted teeth.

“If it’s a comfort, Azog is fleeing.” Bilbo said and nodded in the direction of the pale orc.

Azog roared with fury and started to run back to his warg, only to trip on his booty stilettos and falling over. He rolled over on his back, spitting out fringes of his long, blonde hair as he stared at the eagles attacking his fellow orcs and wargs. He got up again, running to his warg ever so not gracefully and grabbed its fur to jump up, only to fall again by the heels. As he managed to climb up, he saw the eagles carry the dwarves away and carefully picking up Thorin, and a horrible angry roar came from him. Furious, he turned and galloped away on his faithful warg, holding on to the thick leather collar, beautifully decorated and with a name plate, Fiffy, encircled with diamonds, and together they escaped from the eagles. Alive, but furious.

…

Sandra sat on the back of an eagle, holding on to Ori for her dear life – she didn’t know what was the worst, to fly in open air on the back of an eagle without any kind of safety belt or parachute, or seeing Thorin dangling unconscious in the claws of another eagle.

Wilhelmina found the landing the most dramatic though – the eagles has full control, but it all happened so fast, and suddenly she was dropped to the ground from the claws that had been holding her, and she rolled over on her back to sit up. “Man, I feel sick…” she mumbled as Sandra patted her shoulder.

“You’re not the only one.” She mumbled and rubbed her temples, but in the next moment Wilhelmina rolled over on her belly with her face over the edge and puked. “Okay, I’m not that sick.” She turned as she heard the same sound from behind and saw Dwalin doing the same. “Look, Dwalin is throwing up too!”

“That makes me feel so much better, Sandra…” Wilhelmina mumbled and wiped her tears away.

“I hoped it would make you feel less bad…” Sandra shrugged her shoulders.

Rita had seen Thorin’s condition, and had no idea if he was still alive or not – he couldn’t be dead, could he?! That would be so wrong considering both the book and the movies! As her eagle landed, she slipped softly to the ground and ran over to Thorin – Gandalf knelt over him already, but Thorin did not respond to whatever magic the wizard used.

“Move, let me try.” Rita hissed and leant over Thorin. “He’s not breathing…” she tried to find his pulse, but wasn’t sure if it was anything there at all or if she was imagining it. “Well the heart is weak now…” she tilted his head backwards, put two fingers across his nose and grabbed his chin. “Give me strength…” she whispered mostly to herself and leant over him and blew air down to his lungs two times before she turned her attention to his heart. She placed her palms above it and started to push hard, but instead of counting, she mumbled angrily.

“First-I-arrive-here-and-you-are-rude-and-try-to-get-rid-of-us” she bent down and blew two more times and continued pumping.  
“in-a-strange-place-and-then-change-your-mind-but-keep-being-grumpy-but-guess” she blew again  
“what-then-you-get-caught-by-trolls-and-I-have-to-save-your-fucking-ass” again she bent down to blow.  
“and-not-even-a-thank-you-very-kind-to-save-me-from-the-trolls-I-keep-taunting-you-about-the-ponies!” she bitchslapped his face twice and blew more air to his lungs and continued to pump with more rage.  
“And-keep-being-grumpy-in-Rivendell-you-racist-and-then-you-start-drooling-over-Sandra-you-perve” she blew more, making sure his chest raised, checked his eyes and breathing and his pulse and then pumped again. For a short moment, the rest of the company looked at Sandra – her face got a nice shade of pink and she gave them a look like ‘I have no idea what she’s talking about’ and they turned to watch the scene again.

“We-got-almost-killed-today-by-goblins-and-you-try-some-seppuku-thing-with-that” she blew again, and now her pumping turned even more violent.  
“Azog-and-now-I-have-to-save-your-bloody-ass-again-and-on-top-of-it-all” she blew again and continued to pump.  
“I-have-to-blow-air-through-that-fucking-mouth-of-yours.” She sat up and looked down on him, finding that his pulse was stronger, but still he didn’t breathe. She had just had enough of him.  
“YOU WAKE UP NOW BEFORE I START VIOLATE YOUR FUCKING CORPSE! I SWEAR I WILL STUFF SO MANY THING UP YOUR ARSE YOU WON’T EVEN LOOK LIKE A DWARF WHEN I’M DONE WITH YOU!” she slapped his face hard and Thorin snapped for air. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” she hissed and slapped his face again.

Thorin stared at her with frightened eyes. “Did you really mean all that?” he whispered and rubbed his chest, short of breath.

“Did you hear me?!” she spat and frowned at him.

“Yes, like from somewhere far away.” He mumbled and tried to sit up. “Like through a wall of cotton…”

“GOOD! Then maybe you got some damn intelligence inside that thick, stubborn head of yours to understand that you have been constantly pissing me off for days and that I have started to have fantasies about how to kill you slowly and in a very disgracing way!” She pushed him back on the ground and the other dwarves took one step forward but Thorin lifted a hand and they stood their ground.

“I see now that I’ve been treating you… badly…” he muttered and sat up. “And you’re actually the most stubborn and without a doubt the strongest woman I’ve met, and I am truly sorry I haven’t seen you as you are and not been thinking about how I’m treating you. I am sorry, and I am thankful for you saving my life. Twice.”

Rita stood there and glared at him, looking at Sandra and Wilhelmina, who stood there with tears in their eyes, and she knew they were right. She sighed and reached out a hand for Thorin and helped him up. “Just promise me to never share a pony with me again, ever.” She smiled to him, and he couldn’t hold back a small smile himself as he patted her shoulder and allowed himself to give her a hug as well. She stood there with big eyes, wondering if this all was just a dream, after all.

“But I think you’ve broken a rib or two…” he mumbled and stepped back, Rita blushing a little. “I deserved it. Where’s the hobbit?” Thorin asked, looking around.

“He’s just over there, safe and whole!” Gandalf smiled.

Thorin walked over to Bilbo, but still not looking too happy. “What were you doing? You could got yourself killed!”

“Oh here we go again…” Sandra closed her eyes.

“Can I kick his ass now?” Wilhelmina asked and crossed her arms as Thorin ranted to Bilbo about his stupidity.

“Feel free.” Rita whispered, wondering how to kill Thorin – by strangling him with her bare hands, or stabbing him with a dull knife till he stopped moving.

“…I’ve never been so wrong in my life…!” Thorin suddenly whispered and embraced the shocked hobbit – Bilbo couldn’t believe it, and neither did the girls. The other dwarves didn’t either, but they were very happy about Thorin and Bilbo finally sorting out.

“Rita, sure you didn’t hit him too hard?” Kili whispered to her.

“How?”

“He’s gone all emotional and hugging people! He never does that unless they’re old and respected friends!” Fili said and looked at his brother.

“Yeah, I’ve only seen him hugging five persons before. That is Mum, but she’s his sister… And Dwalin, Balin, eh… You know that really old lady back in Ered Luin?”

“Yeah, Eyja, she’s his great-grandmother or something so that’s not weird.” Fili whispered. “Older than the mountain itself…”

“And the fifth person, I think that was Balin and Dwalin’s father, Fundin.” Kili looked at Rita again. “A very respected friend of the family and has been like an uncle to uncle Thorin.”

“So, you’re basically saying that I and Bilbo should treasure this moment forever?” Rita frowned to them and they nodded. “Sure, I will do anyways, it was wonderful to beat him so hard and take out all the cursing I’ve held back the last year.”

*

“Okay, the good news!” Balin said as they sat around the campfire. “We’ve got out of the mountains, all of us are alive and more or less in one piece, and as you see behind me, there is this small cave where we can get all of us in if we dare to sleep a bit closer than usual.” He smiled and the others nodded and smiled, some shaking their hands in silent triumph. “The bad news is: we lost much of our things in there, including all our food rations, so now I hope those of you with a slight idea of how to find something to eat will do an effort.” Immediately all of them sighed and looked at the ground.

“Well, what about berries and mushrooms?” Sandra asked. “It’s late summer, it should be everywhere around here, and if somebody have a small knife, I can make snares and see if I can catch rabbits. Maybe there’s deer around here as well.” she looked around and they nodded.

“Great, who will follow her?” Balin asked and Kili got up. “Of course, you’re an archer.” Balin laughed and looked at him. “Anyone else that knows what berries and mushrooms to eat?” Rita got up and was followed by Dori, Oin, Bofur, Fili and Dwalin, who handed Sandra a small knife. “Great, then the rest of us will look for wood to the fire!”

…

 

“This looks like a good track to use.” Sandra smiled and bent down and started to make a snare out of thin twitches while Kili kept an eye on the forest around them.

“You think we might get anything?” he asked and bent down to watch how she did it.

“Hopefully we’ll have fresh rabbit as breakfast.” Sandra smiled as she checked the snare a last time, and they got up to find another track. “Or maybe grouse, should be lot of them around here.”

Soon she had placed the fifteenth snare, and as she had done with the other snares, she attached a red ribbon on the tree next to it so she would find them in the morning. She sighed and got up, stretching her arms as they and the back ached after crouching so much, but freezing her moves as Kili spoke. “Tell me, are you fancying uncle?”

“How?” she asked and glad the darkness hid her blushing face – damned, was it that visible that she was dead charmed by Thorin??

“Just the way you’ve been looking at him.” Kili shrugged his shoulders and bent down to pluck a few mushrooms he spotted. “Like you take in every detail about him, to be precise.” He said as he studied the mushrooms.

“Well, I wouldn’t say fancy him, it’s just that he’s got a nice appearance.” She said and sat down on a rock, her legs trembling so much she was afraid she would drop to the ground.

“So why licking your lips when looking at him?” Kili said with a mocking smile.

“They felt dry.”

“In heavy rain?” he said and lifted his eyebrows. “Admit it – you’re weak for him.”

“If I were, what would that mean to you?” she sighed and looked at him.

“Would be fun to finally get a cousin, I’ve missed that all my life. Fili tends to be a bit too serious.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled to her.

“Oh gods…!” she sighed loudly and Kili laughed.

“And if Rita’s right, he seems to have a weak spot for you…!” Kili smirked and poked her with an elbow.

“This is embarrassing…” she rolled her eyes, but stopped in the next moment as she heard light steps. She lifted her hand to silence him and he had obviously heard the same. They ducked behind a bush, seeing a deer buck walking past them, but he dropped a few metres ahead as Kili sent a well-placed arrow in his direction.

…

“That looks brutal.” Rita said as Oin was checking on Thorin.

“Which one of them?” Oin snorted to her before he turned to Thorin. “I thought you were past the dwarfling stage, but obviously I’m wrong… Running between burning trees to take an orc on a warg, alone, with only a sword…! A miracle you’re alive!”

“Oin…” Thorin sighed, closing his eyes as the elderly dwarf lifted his chin to rinse a cut he got from the blow in the face.

“A miracle you’re not dead!” Oin sighed.

“And as that’s not a miracle alone…” Rita mumbled and sat down beside him. “Instead of getting your face ripped off as most people would get by such power from the blow in your face, you only got a cut and what looks like a dislocated jaw.”

“What do you mean?” Thorin mumbled and turned his head slightly to look at her.

“It looks like your jaw is slightly dislocated. Please, open your mouth as wide as you can.” She said and Thorin looked confused at her for a moment as Oin stepped back, but she silently commanded him to do it. He tried to open it any more than what he had done when simply mumbling the last hours, but stopped as pain throbbed through his head. “Yeah, as I suspected…” Rita sighed and looked almost sympathetic for a moment.

“How…?” Thorin looked at her, not comfortable at all.

“First – a troll-sized orc hit you in your face with a metal club – a miracle we don’t need to stitch your face back on. Second – your face looked kinda… weird. Third – trust me.”

“Do you know how to fix it?” Oin asked and looked surprised at her – he didn’t know she knew any sort of medicine.

“I can dislocate my jaw on command, I’m quite familiar with it.” She smiled and did so.

“Yeah, let her do it.” Oin said and sat down so Thorin was left to Rita’s powers.

Thorin looked nervously at her as she sat down on the rock in front of him and placed her hands on each side of his jaw. “This must be the best day in my life; I get to ravish you, twice!” she smiled and Thorin rolled his eyes. “Relax, just think of something nice. Like fluffy kittens, rivers of gold, Sandra skinny dipping in the river over there-“

And then a quick snap – Thorin roared from the pain and pulled back and out of her grip, fell back and off from the stone and lay on the ground, rubbing his aching jaw. “Try to open your mouth now!” Rita said and leant over the rock he had been sitting on seconds ago.

“That was a damn filthy trick, you… you… Defiler!!” Thorin shouted and at the same time showing that it had worked perfectly.

“Yes, his face looks almost normal again!” Oin smiled to Rita.

“Almost?” Thorin growled and sat up.

“Your face still looks like a meatball after all that beating – cuts, bruises…” Rita said and shrugged her shoulders.

“Thanks!” Thorin said and got up, looking up at her with a slightly insulted face.

“You’re welcome!” Rita smiled and laid a hand atop of his head and ruffled his hair as she walked by with a huge grin and sang as she left him. “What a wonderful day!”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally blame my DA friend PickleCharming for this crack. We're sorry. (but we regret nothing)


	5. Anthropology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So our friends learn about Dwarfish courting and fun. And we meet BEORN.

Sandra woke up in the middle of the night, for a moment confused about where she was – she used a second to remember what had happened the last weeks, but she closed her eyes to welcome sleep again as she had calmed her senses. Then she remembered why she woke up in the first place; somebody had made their bedroll beside her, and she barely opened her eyes to see – it was Thorin, she guessed his part of the night shift was over, and she saw Nori sitting by the fire. Thorin had insisted on taking the first shift, as he ‘was already too bruised and hammered to be able to sleep yet’.

Sandra carefully turned, her back turned against him – it was a small, very small cave and they had to lay very close for all of them to fit in, and next to her was Wilhelmina – they were so close that she could feel her breath against her face. She closed her eyes again and had almost fallen asleep as she noticed Thorin lying down beside her – she couldn’t help it, her heart started to beat faster and she knew that she actually enjoyed being this close to him.

A few minutes went by and nothing happened, only thing to be heard were snores or heavy breaths, and Sandra had almost fallen asleep again as she suddenly felt his fur coat over her and a strong arm around her as she was pulled closer to him – he must have noticed her surprise, as he whispered to her. “Don’t worry, just sleep.”

“Why?” she whispered back to not wake the others.

“I saw you were freezing.” He said low, holding her close – and she enjoyed it. And he was right, she had lost her sleeping bag in the mountains and the blanket she had borrowed wasn’t as warm as her beloved bag.

“Thank you.” She smiled, knowing she would sleep well tonight.

*

“Slept well?” Sandra smiled next morning to Wilhelmina as she woke up.

“I’m not sure… Had a weird dream…” she groaned as she sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

“Oh?” Sandra asked and cleaned her hands – she had been preparing 10 rabbits for breakfast, and the smell of rabbit stew soon woke up most of the hungry dwarves.

“I’m not sure if I should tell or not…” Wilhelmina sighed and sat up. Rita was waking up too and looked at her from her ‘bed’, and Sandra nodded to Wilhelmina. “Okay… I dreamed that I woke up because Nori and Dwalin was… riding by the campfire… How embarrassing that my mind do this to me…” she whispered and buried her face in her hands as Rita and Sandra silently giggled.

“I’m not sure that was a dream, lass.” Bofur said as he handed them a bowl each with rabbit stew. The girls looked surprised up at him and he sat down in front of them with his legs crossed and started to eat his stew. “To put it this way; I ‘dreamt’ the same.”

“Are you telling me it wasn’t a dream?” Wilhelmina said and frowned in confusion.

“I see you don’t know much about that part about dwarves.” Bofur shrugged his shoulders. “Most dwarves are attracted to both genders.”

“Are you telling me you’re bisexual?” Sandra asked from where she stood. “Like… Actually attracted to both genders, both in… emotions and… sexually?”

“Yes.” Bofur shrugged his shoulders like it was a daily matter he was speaking of. “Come on, when under 1/3 of dwarves are women, you can’t be picky, especially when genitals and breasts are the only difference, and sometimes you can’t rely on the breasts either, just look at…” he giggled and nodded to his left, where Bombur sat in peace and had no idea what they were discussing.

“Aaah…” Rita said after a moment. “So it is true, that dwarf women have beard?”

“Very true. My mother had a very impressive moustache you must know!” Bofur said and smiled proudly as he corrected his own. “We see the difference quite easily, but to strangers it can be hard, they say. It's the face and ass you have to look at - rounder ass, softer facial features! Though, marriage is rare these days, and as far as I know, they’ve only happened between man and woman. I can also add that most dwarves have only one true love in their life.”

“Just to make things straight then – all of you are men.” Wilhelmina said and took her first taste of the rabbit stew and Bofur nodded. “And… are all of you bisexual?”

“I actually think so.” Bofur placed the empty bowl beside him. “Though I suspect Balin is only attracted to men, and same for Bifur. So far, Fili has been running after women only, but who knows.”

“Now this will be nice to know when we go to bed tonight.” Rita said and laughed a little.

“Really? Then just out of curiosity – what is normal among you?” Bofur turned the spotlight onto them and they sat there and looked at each other.

“Well… Usually, you are attracted to the opposite gender. Though, it’s not unusual to be attracted to both genders, or only the same as yourself. And where we live, you can marry both man and woman.” Wilhelmina said and the others nodded.

“Then out of more curiosity – what are you attracted to?” Bofur asked this like he was asking about a pet’s name, though Wilhelmina and Sandra blushed.

Rita just spoke. “Men. I’m very boring and straight, I go for men all the way. But I admire those who do otherwise.”

“Men.” Sandra said and shrugged her shoulders.

“Both, I think.” Wilhelmina said after a while. “Don’t look at me, I can’t help it I’m insecure about my orientation!”

“I’m looking more at the two that only go for men. How… Boring…” Bofur said thoughtfully.

“You then?” Sandra said and smirked to him.

“Both. Any time.” Bofur smirked back and they couldn’t hold back their laughs anymore. “But seriously – yes.” He said as they tried to regain a bit of seriousness.

“Just because Wilhelmina happened to observe this tonight, I have to ask – are any here in relations with each other somehow?” Rita asked and immediately knew she would regret it.

“Relations… No, just a few that… Likes to take out needs on each other…” Bofur shrugged his shoulders. “Like Nori and Dwalin, and I can also add that Thorin and Dwalin have done it a few times, but not recently as I know; they were crazier when they were younger. And also the night before you showed up, I saw Kili and Ori having some fun, made me feel slightly embarrassed as I and Kili let out some tension the night before we arrived at Bag End – come on, it wasn’t that long ago!”

“The mental pictures…” Sandra whispered and stared at her bowl of stew.

“Dwalin and Thorin… By some reason I imagine that to very rough and intense…” Wilhelmina said and Rita looked at her with a surprised face. “Come on, I might look innocent but I do have a creative mind! I’ve done more than you think!”

“Believe me, Thorin is intense…!” Bofur whispered with a smirk on his lips and the gals suddenly blushed even more. Then his face turned into the usual playful one as he whispered. “And here he comes!” Then they heard the sound of heavy boots on the ground behind them.

In the next moment Thorin stood beside them, looking at Sandra who stood there with a half eaten portion of stew. “I just wanted to thank you and Kili for the effort in finding some proper food. You did well with the stew.”

“Oh, thank you” she said and smiled and the gals and Bofur could see that she was fighting to keep her mask due to the information she just had gotten. “I thought I saw Kili over there.”

“Great, thank you.” Thorin nodded and was about to step away when he suddenly turned back to her, frowning a little. “Is everything ok?”

“Yes, just fine!” she gasped and looked like she was chewing on a lemon despite her desperate effort in smiling. Wilhelmina and Rita looked as they were struggling against the same laugh as her, but at least they weren’t in focus by the object itself. All the new information made her mind go crazy with mental pictures and she couldn’t help but feeling the urge to explore it and she cursed her lively mind. And now one of the objects of the new information was looking at her.

“She just got to learn about our ways to please our needs.” Bofur said and fished out his pipe from his inner pocket.

“And that’s not the same ways as us?” Thorin looked at Bofur and then at Sandra who had a hard time to not start laughing and tears had started to form in her eyes. “Or are they something completely different from the humans here in Middle Earth?”

“They mostly go for the opposite gender, those poor bastards. And the mental picture of our group going for each other was kind of entertaining to them.” Bofur shrugged his shoulders.

“Poor indeed.” Thorin turned to Sandra and saw the tears. “Just so you know, don’t be shocked if you see anything at night.”

“Already happened, Wilhelmina thought she had a weird a dream, but I told her that it actually was Dwalin and Nori having fun.” Bofur smiled and inhaled smoke.

“Really? In the middle of Nori’s shift?” Thorin turned to Bofur.

“And completely shameless.” Bofur said and blew a ring of smoke.

“At least somebody is having fun…” Thorin sighed and now a sort of snorting sound came from Sandra. “I have to ask again – are you ok?”

Then Sandra started to laugh and she bent down to pick up her pillow, lifted a hand to him like she told him to give her a second, and buried her face in the pillow and roared. Then she silenced, slowly put down the pillow and breathed slowly and then looked at him. “Yes. Just amused.”

“Don’t worry Thorin, sooner or later it’s your turn.” Bofur said and looked at Thorin with a playful smile and, since he turned away from Rita and Wilhelmina and Sandra was busy burying her face in the pillow, they didn’t see how Bofur looked at Sandra and then to Thorin with a teasing smile.

Thorin looked at Sandra again and shook his head and said a few words in Khuzdul, (‘if I ever were to seek relief with a human again…’) which made Bofur just smile and shake his head. “Okay, I go and find Kili.” he said and patted Sandra’s shoulder and looked at her like he was waiting for another burst of laughter.

“Just tell me if you need anything.” She said and in the next moment realized how awkward it was, especially considering the conversation and Bofur’s last line, and she should be glad she had no idea what Thorin had said to Bofur in Khuzdul. Thorin looked to the ground biting his lower lip and with an expression that wasn’t easy to tell what it was. “I mean…” she started and her face got a nice shade of red. “Like you need to check the wounds before we leave or…”

“You can check them after I’ve talked with Kili.” Thorin said and headed to find his nephew.

Sandra stood there and blushed, wondering what the hell she was thinking. “Yeah.” Rita said and then started to giggle.

“I just tried to save my ass, ok?!” Sandra said as Rita started to laugh.

“Oh I’m sure” Bofur said with irony and Sandra realized she had lost this battle.

…

“Good thing that my first aid kit got out from the mountains with me.” Sandra said and sat down beside Thorin and opened it to pick out a few bandages and gauzes.

“Pure luck.” Thorin said and took off his shirt and for a moment Sandra had to bite her lower lip to not let her jaw drop – even when his torso was bruised and had a few nasty cuts, he looked amazing and she couldn’t help but thinking of how it would feel to rest her cheek against that furry chest. Not to mention the tattoos – one above his heart, reminding of a hammer, and each upper arm was covered with different patterns, some kind of dwarfish cult and runes it seemed. And they made her heart skip a beat.

She mentally kicked herself back to focus. “I think I’m going to use some gauzes now and a few bandages, so that movement and friction between clothes and skin doesn’t make the wounds more irritated, then you can remove them at night so they can heal better. Is that a fair plan to you?”

“Sure, I trust you know what you’re doing.” Thorin said and looked at her, a small smile on his lips.

Her heart skipped another beat and she was sure that if he kept smiling to her, she would be dead long before they even reached Erebor. “Thank you.” She smiled and blushed before she picked up a pad and some antiseptic cleanser and started to clean the wounds he had gotten – thankfully they seemed to not be infected and she hoped that they would stay that way and heal nicely. She lifted her gaze a few times and saw Oin checking on the others that had gotten a wound or two the day before.

As she moved to take a look on the cut on his back, she saw that his back didn’t have any tattoos, but from here she could see that the ones he had on his biceps, actually went all the way around it, and she had to stop for a moment to just admire it – the body art was indeed amazing and she had to mentally shout at herself to focus on the wounds. As she cleaned the cut, she wondered how they did tattoos in Middle Earth, since it was no chance they had the same equipment as in her own world.

As she put on the gauzes, she noticed some other scars on his back; cuts and a few stabs it seemed like, and they seemed to date from different battles. She wondered how many battles he had been in, how severe the damages were or if they were “just cuts”, and why he had seemed to be supposed to survive all of them, so far.

“There, ready to go!” she smiled as she attached the bandages and admired her work – she still remembered most of what she had learned about first aid and now she got to use it.

“Great Sandra, I owe you for this.” Thorin said and carefully pulled the shirt over his head.

“I guess you would have done the same.” Sandra smiled to him and was about to get up when he laid a hand on her cheek.

“Yes, I would.” He said with a warm tone in his voice she had not heard before and his thumb caressed her cheek before he got up and walked back to his bedroll to fetch his armour.

Sandra sat there, face blushing and heart beating like a maniac – so, she wasn’t wrong when she suspected that the feelings were mutual? Damn she had gotten herself into more trouble than she had expected.

*

As she spotted the house, Rita sped up – the hope for a bed, a bath and proper meal was now lit and if it wasn’t for Wilhelmina and Sandra holding her back, she would have ran. “Come on, I need a soft bed!”

“And I need a cup of coffee…” Wilhelmina rolled her eyes. “There is much we need, but running in and kissing someone’s shoes won’t help us.”

“But…!” Rita moaned and slowed down – they were the last ones to enter, as Bombur had refused to wait with them and ran after Bifur and Bofur.

“And I need a bath…” Sandra mumbled and lifted her arm a little. “I’m stinking…”

“Admit it; you only want to clean yourself for someone certain.” Rita teased.

“Well, smelling like sweat and goblins is unattractive to anyone…!” now it was Sandra’s turn to roll her eyes.

“I’m not sure if dwarves are into oral…” Rita said and looked thoughtful.

“They are, after what I saw.” Wilhelmina said monotonously.

“Okay, then one mystery is solved.” Rita said and looked at Wilhelmina. “Are you okay? You’ve been so silent after that night!”

“I never had a wish of being the witness of somebody else’s intimate act!” Wilhelmina cried out.

“I understand…” Sandra sighed and laid and arm around her shoulder. “Rita don’t.”

“EY!”

“And here you have my last companions!” they heard Gandalf say and they silenced as they saw Beorn sit there, with the company sitting either on the ground or other objects that sufficed.

“At least one of them is of normal size…” Beorn mumbled. “How did 3 human women and one hobbit end up with a bunch of dwarves?” Sandra tried to not smile by finally hearing a comment about being normal again.

“It’s a long story, but I can explain that to you later if you want another good story.” Gandalf said friendly.

“Sure! Now, I guess you all are hungry, so let me fix something.” Beorn smiled and got up.

“Damn, he looks like Mikael Persbrandt…!” Sandra whispered to Wilhelmina and Rita.

“This is the worst mindfuck of all times…!” Rita whispered back.

“I just want to find out of this is a dream or not…” Wilhelmina sighed. “My academic brain gets confused.”

“Just look for tattoos, ok?”

*

“After talking with Oin, I dare say we’ll have a fair chance at getting a bath tomorrow!” Wilhelmina smiled to the other girls. “Good weather is coming!”

“Ah, brilliant!” Sandra sighed with relief. “I can’t wait!”

“And look what I found in my bag – our bikinis!” Rita smirked and held up one of them.

“Of all things you could get out of the mountain, you got the bikinis?!” Wilhelmina stared at Rita.

“Would you rather go skinny-dipping?” Rita said and put her hands to her hips.

“No, it’s just… Of all things…” Wilhelmina facepalmed.

“What’s that, a handkerchief?” they heard Bofur call from a few beds away.

“With those colours? HAHA!” Dwalin followed up and Rita quickly hid it.

“Great Rita, we will hear about that tomorrow.” Sandra snickered and sat up on her bed. “Never seen woman underwear before?”

“Not with those colours! What’s the point in that, they’re going off anyways!” Dwalin laughed and Bofur gave him a high-five.

“You’re so boring.” Sandra shook her head smiling. “Back where I come from, we like to think of the underwear as the nice wrapping around the present!”

“If you don’t mind, I need to go to the toilet before I go to sleep.” Wilhelmina smiled and got up from her bed. She left the room and found the toilet and quickly did what she had to.

On her way back, she met Fili, Kili and Thorin – they had been outside and smoking before going to bed. “I thought you had gone to bed.” Fili smiled and stopped.

“Nature’s call. Besides, Sandra started some childish jokes with Dwalin.” She smiled back.

“We just go inside.” Kili said and followed Thorin, and there they stood, alone.

“Fantastic, he’s finally found someone with the same childish sense of humour as him?” Fili laughed and shook his head.

“Seems so.” Wilhelmina said. “So, what were you doing outside?”

“Just smoked our pipes a little before going to bed.” Fili shrugged his shoulders.

Wilhelmina looked out the window, and saw Sandra was right – now she could see a clear full moon outside. “It’s beautiful.” She said and looked out.

“Should have seen it just outside the door – it’s really a beautiful place here.” Fili smiled and leant against the wall and looked out the window.

“I didn’t expect you dwarves found such things beautiful.” Wilhelmina said with a smile. “Considering that you prefer mining and such.”

“Most of my life I’ve lived above the ground. Or, we had a home inside the Blue Mountains, but I was helping with trading and blacksmithing, so I’ve been a lot above the ground.” Fili said and looked at her. “I’ve seen many moons and stars.”

“Is that what your family did for a living?” Wilhelmina asked, curious about what had happened after Moria but before this quest.

“Mum was trading what they made inside the mountains, and I and Kili helped her. Uncle spent much time inside the mountains, being in charge of many processes, but he was working outside too, from time to time, as a blacksmith. I’ve spent many hours in the forge with him, learning the art.” Fili said and sighed. “But he never seemed pleased, like this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. The last years he’s been turning colder and harder, so I knew this was going to happen soon.”

“I can see that.” Wilhelmina said. “After all, he was heir to a wealthy throne, and suddenly it was lost.”

“Yes, so let’s hope this ends well.” Fili said and looked at her. “But it’s kind of funny – after you showed up, he’s been turning a bit… smoother again…”

“Really? I didn’t know him before, so…” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

“Is it only me, or is there something going on between him and Sandra?” Fili asked and Wilhelmina had no idea what to say and remained silent. “Like… I’ve never seen him looking at a woman that way. You know, when it’s more than something pleasing to your eyes.”

“It’s… not only you.” Wilhelmina sighed. “And I don’t know how to feel about it – we don’t come from here, we have no idea if we’ll be gone tomorrow or not! And… He’s 195 years old, she’s 21…”

“I see that.” Fili sighed. “So, in your world, how old would Thorin be?”

“Twice as old as her.” Mina lifted her eyebrows. “Let’s think of it in a positive way – she makes him happy, and someone seems to be happy being in love!”

“Indeed.” Fili smiled and looked at her – their eyes met, and Wilhelmina felt like her legs was being kicked away under her; she had never thought about how beautiful his eyes were. And Fili found himself lost in the brown depths of her eyes, and if it wasn’t for his brother coming at them, he could have stood like that forever.

“We’re turning out the lights now, you better get in!” Kili said as he entered the scene. “Wait, did I disturb something here?”

“Uh, no, not at all!” Wilhelmina said and put on a big smile. “Right, Fili?”

“Yeah, we were just talking. Better get some sleep.” Fili smiled and followed Kili. As he passed Wilhelmina, he smiled warmly to her, and she felt her heart skip a beat – it seemed like it wasn’t only Sandra having a problem of this kind going on.

*

“What is it Wilhelmina?” Rita asked after breakfast.

“Huh? What?” she answered and stopped keeping an eye on Sandra, who ran after Beorn with a silly smile and asking all kind of questions – she had always been weak for Mikael Persbrandt, so when Beorn actually looked like the actor, she ignored the fact that he was almost 2,5 metres. By some reasons he didn’t have the tattoos, which confirmed they were in a weird parallel universe. Wilhelmina wasn’t the only one noticing – Thorin was exceptionally grumpy and seemed to let ‘insulting Beorn’ become a sport, even though he knew that the man could pop his head off with his little finger if he wanted to.

“You’re so silent.” Rita asked as they were done observing Thorin’s last insult about Beorn being a vegetarian, which led to Sandra insulting Thorin in a try to keep Beorn from getting insulted, but made Thorin even grumpier, something that led Beorn to silently leave the scene and making Thorin’s mood better as he suddenly turned into a gentleman towards Sandra. Something that included things as massaging her shoulders for the fourth time that day. “And that isn’t because you’re observing this weird, primitive game of mating going on over there.”

“No, I’m just… tired…” Wilhelmina yawned and stretched – which was very true, she had hardly slept that night after realizing what was going on between her and Fili.

“There’s something else, isn’t it?” Rita asked, and before Wilhelmina got to answer, Fili walked by, smiled to Wilhelmina and her reply was blushing cheeks. “I see…” Rita then said. “I don’t blame you, he likes Pet Shop Boys.”

“WHAT?”

“I introduced them to him with my iPod!” Rita said to her defence.

“Man, this is… wow…” Wilhelmina facepalmed.

“Come on, it’s not every day you find a dwarf that likes Pet Shop Boys! He found Bolshy very catchy!”

“I think it’s time to go and take that bath. And we should go get Sandra, before we end up watching the entire rite of dwarfish courting over there…” Wilhelmina said and got up.

“You’re right, we need that bath.” Rita smiled and followed her.

“Did anyone mention a bath?!” they heard one of the dwarf say, and in the next moment it was chaos.

“Oh great.” Now Rita was the one facepalming.


	6. Lemon Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So finally we have something happening, but still oh so far. And I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for Sandra and Thorin, so I should probably let them have a proper moment soon xD
> 
> This chapter seems to mostly consist of borderline-smut and emotional confusion, but hey - we need some character depth, aye? Hopefully I get to write something more constructive soon xD (constructive, it's a crack fic!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title Lemon Tree is mostly because I was listening to that song while writing it, and the band name "Fools Garden" seemed to fit way too well. Except from that, the title give no meaning unless you can read my mind :P

“I can’t believe they made fun of our bikinis!” Rita said as she dried herself with a towel – among the very few things they managed to bring with them from the mountain, it was one bag and in that they had a set of bikinis each. They had decided to take a bath in the river just two hundred metres from Beorn’s house, but the dwarves had never seen a bikini before and it all ended up with the three girls finding their own spot in the river to not kill the dwarves by laughter – they were skinny dipping and seeing no reasons to hide parts of their bodies with “ridiculously small piece of cloths with weird colours and patterns”.

“Remember, most of them are bisexual and don’t make a big deal out of a naked body.” Wilhelmina smiled and tucked the towel around herself. Only Sandra was left in the river.

“At least we got away from the water war some of them started.” Sandra smiled and closed her eyes.

“True that.” Wilhelmina nodded. “Shall we wait for you, or do you want to have a few silent minutes?”

“I was thinking about the last option.” Sandra shrugged her shoulders. “I won’t be long though.”

“No problem.” Rita smiled and tucked the towel around herself. “But we’ll come back for you if you’re not back in 30 minutes!”

“Yeah, we don’t want the dwarves to walk up on you and Thorin…” Wilhelmina giggled.

“Oh come on!” Sandra rolled her eyes.

“Be kind, Wilhelmina.” Rita smiled and laid a hand on Wilhelmina’s shoulder. “There are worse things out there than Thorin, like orcs!”

“Yeah… We don’t want you to be eaten by wargs, so we’ll be back if you don’t return, ok?” Wilhelmina said and picked up her towel.

“Deal!” Sandra smiled and watched them leave. She sat there for a while and enjoyed the water, feeling how it made her body relax again – she had been tensed after the incidents the last days, and the warm water did miracles to a sore body.

She sat there until she realized she didn’t hear the others anymore – had all of them gone back except her? She looked nervously around before she got up and quickly dried herself with the towel and started to walk back – the thought of an ambush haunted her mind after the meeting with goblins and wargs. Thankfully she was a skilled hunter and had the ability to avoid being seen if she didn’t want to be seen.

On her way back she walked past the spot where the others had been and where her clothes should be, and to her surprise she found Thorin still sitting in the river, alone. He looked up as he saw her, and she stopped in her tracks, wondering why she did it and what she should say. “Well, I wasn’t the only one looking for a silent moment?” she managed to say after what felt like eternities but was in fact just a few seconds.

“I guessed silence would be hard to find at Beorn’s.” Thorin smiled to her. “You then?”

“The same, I just got a bit nervous as I thought I was the only one left.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Normally I don’t mind at all, as I feel nature is my home, but the thought of an ambush…”

“I see that.” Thorin sighed. “I bet you’re right, wandering around here alone isn’t clever. Would you give me a moment, so we can walk back together?” he asked and without waiting for her answer, he got up from the deep spot in the river where he had been sitting and walked back on shore.

“Sure!” she said and turned around after staring for a moment, his naked frame more breathtaking than she had imagined. Well, she had gotten some glimpses earlier but none as good and revealing as this; she had seen his tattoos, but not the small one below his heart and it made her heart skip a beat. His body was perfectly muscular and defined to her taste, and the dark hairs that covered his chest and belly made her ache and long to touch him. Not to mention that despite the fact that he was a dwarf, he seemed like he wouldn’t have problems satisfying her.

Her cheeks blushed as she thought of what she had seen moments before and the chaos of feelings it had started; she wanted him, but she also feared it – she still didn’t understand how she got here and her role in this in the first place, so the thought of getting that close to their leader didn’t look like the most clever idea. But she had grown very fond of him, and she couldn’t deny that his looks attracted her in ways she didn’t want to speak loud of and seeing him this exposed yet relaxed and controlled just kept it going. But what made her most nervous, was how inexperienced she was, and how experienced he most likely were, considering his age and status – expectations, her worst enemy.

Yet, he was something different from her – she was a human, he was a dwarf, a different race, maybe even a different species and it made her the more confused, which fed the fear – right now she hated Darwin’s theory, which she usually considered as one of the few correct things in this world. Her world. Whatever. But she was so curious, so hungry for him, and with her growing feels and wants for him, it made her mind a chaos. She did the right thing when turning away, she told herself.

“Nothing new here.” Thorin chuckled as he dried his body with stiff moves and with that ruining everything she had won after the internal fight.

“Is it now I point out that dwarves still are a bit new to me?” she said and dared to look at him while he tucked the towel around his waist, but she also noticed how stiff his moves were. “Tell me, are you still… Having effects after that warg?”

“No, I’m fine.” He said and carefully picked up his shirt, telling her the quite opposite with his strained moves.

“Screw that stubbornness of yours, your back isn’t agreed about that.” She said and put her hands to her hips.

Thorin sighed and looked at her. “If so, is there anything you can do to that?”

“If it’s the muscles being sore and tensed after the attack, I might soften them a little with massage.” She shrugged her shoulders. “You could at least let me try, sit down.” She pointed at a rock and Thorin sighed and sat down. “Just tell me if it hurts.” She said and sat down behind him, starting to knead his shoulders and working towards the spine and down from there.

Here and there she found tensed spots and muscle knots, most likely dating back to the famous attack. Now and then pleased and relieved sighs slipped from Thorin, telling her she was doing it just right, while she fought an inner battle to remain calm. She then worked up again towards his neck, finding an especially tensed knot and realized it would be easier for her to work on it from the front. She moved and sat down in front of him and worked from the shoulders and up his neck.

He had closed his eyes and she allowed herself to admire his beautiful face; the oval shape perfectly framed by the dark hair, the beard somehow highlighting the powerful jaw line and the straight nose giving such character to his face. The cut after the warg attack was still there, but it had by now started to heal and looked better than what it had done for days. Her gaze moved to his lips and she admired how perfectly shaped they were – thin but still with a good shape and she couldn’t help but wonder how they would feel against hers.

Her hands massaged his neck carefully on the tensed muscle and slowly his face looked more and more peaceful as her effort worked. She continued up his neck, all the time being lost in his appearance while she tried to tell herself to cool down, getting any closer than this would mean nothing else than trouble.

Another sigh slipped from him, but that didn’t sound like the earlier ones that revealed relief, this one sounded like one coming from delight, or maybe pleasure. She suddenly realized he was looking at her, his eyes burning and it felt like he looked straight through her soul, and to her joy and fear, his eyes revealed desire. This was something she had only seen short glimpses of a few times, believing it was her imagination running wild, but now there was no doubt. He desired her, the hunger visible as he looked her in her eyes. She managed to take her eyes from his for a moment and saw that she had reached as far up as the hair, a few of her fingers twinned in his hair: for all she knew, he might have a kink about such things and her cheeks turned red.

Her hands carefully slid down along his neck, all the time their eyes locked together in some kind of battle – but not against each other, it was a battle against their wills, they both seemed to be fighting the same battles. She was about to take her hands completely away from him when he laid his hands on her arms to stop them from moving and her breath snapped, the situation tensed as it was dominated by the inner battles both of them had been fighting the last moments.

Then, like there was no other way, they both leaned in to each other and none of them had the strength to prevent it from happening – their lips met and their eyes closed as the battle was lost and they both gave in to what they had wanted for weeks. Hands started to wander and explore and the kiss turned from gentle and careful at first until they both lost control and passion was loose.

Sandra had no idea how it happened, but suddenly she found herself sitting on his lap while his hands caressed her thighs – but she liked it, she loved the way his strong hands gently yet greedily explored her. He broke the kiss to place kisses on her neck and a moan slipped from her, his beard tickling her just the right way. Instinctively she spread her legs more as his hand slipped in between her thighs and she let out a moan as he rubbed her through the fabrics of her bikini. She rocked her hips against him while her hand sneaked down from his neck and across his chest and belly before it sneaked under the towel. He moaned as she let a finger playfully slide up and down his shaft before she let her hand grip it and started to pump it.

Their lips met again in a heated kiss – Sandra’s other hand rested on Thorin’s neck, holding some lengths of his hair while he held and arm around her body as the other one kept arousing her. She gasped as he suddenly lifted her and carefully laid her down on the grass. For a moment their eyes met again, and she trembled as she saw the lust in his eyes. He kissed her neck as one of his hands slid under the bikini – again she gasped, a mix of nervousness and pleasure. She was already soaking wet, and she felt herself becoming wetter as he played around her entrance while his thumb rubbed her clit – then he dipped one finger carefully in and she couldn’t hold back a moan. It was narrow, but so far it felt good with one finger.

This was new to her – she had never had anyone else going in there like that before, and as he kept the work with his fingers going, she felt the orgasm build up. It hit her, and she held him tight against her as it rolled over her in waves. Thorin pushed the bikini top aside and sucked on her nipples, just increasing the pleasure during those moments it lasted.

As it faded away, she looked at Thorin – hell, she wanted it now. She rolled fully over on her back and pulled him with her. “I want you, now.” She whispered in his ear.

“Sure?” he asked, correcting himself between her legs – he was damned tempted, but he had noticed one thing; she hadn’t done it before, and the least thing he wanted was to force her to something she wasn’t ready for.

“Yes, do it, now.” She whispered, and to her joy, she then felt that he wasn’t going to disobey her wish.

Then the moment was brutally killed as they heard feet stomping quickly through the woods towards them. Thorin jumped off from Sandra and with one hand he grabbed his towel while the other pulled up the sword, while she quickly got up and tucked her own towel around herself. To their relief it was nobody else than Beorn. “Your company wonder where you are.” Beorn said friendly as he saw Thorin’s sword. “I think you can put the sword down.” He added with a slight smile, making Thorin’s eyes darken a bit – oh, how tempted he was…

“Don’t worry, we were just around the corner.” Sandra brushed some dust off herself and turned to Thorin as she picked up her shirt. “Right?”

“Yes.” Thorin sighed and picked up his breeches. “Just tell the others we’re back in a couple of minutes.”

Beorn nodded with a smile and turned to walk back, and Sandra looked down while she got dressed again – she thought of something to say, but the words wouldn’t come. As Thorin had read her mind, he laid a hand on her shoulder as she corrected her boots. “I know.” He said and she looked up at him, seeing something kind in his eyes as he started to walk down the path they came from and she hurried to follow him. Did he really understand her that well? At least well enough to not make an awkward situation of it.

As she walked behind him, she took in the frame of him – damn, she had been so close. But even when she was so near, it was still oh so far. She bit her lip, thinking that it seemed like she would still have to be virgin for a while.

*

Sandra sat outside the door and looked across the plains, wondering what she had got herself up to; damn, she had read the book and she knew how this would end and it broke her heart to think that not all of them would see the end of this. Though, an idea had started to grow in her mind the last days after Rita saved Thorin’s life; what if they could change the outcome of this? To make sure that all of them would get to see Erebor again in its former glory? Little did she know that all three of them had already been important to the story and would get even more important. When she didn’t think of this, she thought of the moment she had with Thorin earlier that night and her face blushed – well, she had been that close to literally fuck up everything.

She hardly noticed that someone sat down beside her, not until that someone spoke and she realized it was nobody else than her eyecandy. “I just wanted to say thank you for the care you’ve shown me the last days.” Thorin said low, looking up at the starry sky. “I realized I haven’t thanked you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.” Sandra smiled to him. “It wasn’t much, basically tending your wounds and checking if your back was totally out of order.” Well, and teasing his erogenous spots, kissing him, getting fingered and starting to jerk him off, but she kept her mouth shut about that.

“A lot to me.” Thorin turned to her and she felt her belly turn upside down like she was suddenly falling – did he actually thank her, and did he imply anything?

“Oh, well, maybe, I just…” she stuttered and blushed, the awkward feeling settling in her.

“Why so shy?” Thorin asked her, still with the warm smile. “You, who so far always have been finding the words and seemed so confident!”

“Me, confident?!” she laughed and leant back against the wall. “I’m anything else than confident.”

“Why?” Thorin asked, looking her in her eyes.

“Impossible to say one specific thing. You know, all the small streams become a big river.” She sighed and looked at the moon.

“So tell me about them.” Thorin said, finding her interesting as there seemed to be many sides about her – to him, this talk was something he would have done no matter what had happened between them earlier. He had looked for her to thank her and to hopefully getting to this, though he knew it could be hard considering the moment they had earlier that day.

“If you really want to bother yourself…” she laughed dryly before she started. “First, bullying in school; my every day consisted of insults about my looks or clothes, being beaten up and always the one to blame. Eventually they got tired of beating me up and found it much funnier to keep me outside the good company and I got used to the feeling of never really belonging anywhere and was happy to have very few, but very good friends. And a family where we were a few that cared for each other. Guys never showed any interest in me and I’m used to be hopelessly in love but being rejected, it seems to be a never-ending curse. In school I was quite average because the teachers didn’t understand me, and I never got to fully express my knowledge. All this ends up with a feeling of never being good enough and therefore no confidence.” She turned and looked at him, seeing he had paid attention to her story, which made her grateful. “So there you got it.”

“If it can make you feel better – everyone here in this company admires you.” Thorin said low and looked down for a moment before he looked at her again. “You are beautiful, clever and you seem to get well along with the others as well. You have a great knowledge, you are a skilled huntsman and you know nature well. You’re even starting to pick up your skills with the sword, something I hadn’t expected considering your rather small biceps.” Thorin said the last with a smile and she had to laugh a little, knowing she had little muscles compared to the rest of their company. “My point is – here, you are respected as the one you are, not kept outside for the things you are not.”

“It’s good to hear.” She said and blushed, glad to actually hear that she had made a good impression on them.

“Don’t believe anything else.” Thorin said and looked her in her eyes. “You’re considered a friend of our kin by now, you’re clever and you’re beautiful.”

“Do you really think so? I don’t have a beard you know.” She said and felt incredibly warm, her mouth dry, she was sure she was sweating by now by the way he looked at her, reminding her of the incident hours ago.

“For being a human, then – good enough?” Thorin said and they laughed until he regained some control and looked her in her eyes again. “But I mean it, you are beautiful. I wouldn’t have done what we did back there if I didn’t find you interesting at any point.”

Her mouth felt drier and she couldn’t speak for a few moments – he was really hitting on her again and she couldn’t believe it. He reached out a hand to move a strand of hair away from her face and as he did, his fingers gently brushed against her skin and she felt like jumping on him and attack him with passion.

But she never got that far, as Gandalf and Beorn showed up, and she swore Beorn lived for ruining her moments only, especially when he made a comment about running into the two of them all the time. Thorin looked like he was sharing the same opinion, so when they asked for him, he gently nodded her to the living room where the company stayed and she willingly obeyed, afraid she would find herself able to attack Beorn. She was starting to dislike Beorn at this point, but suddenly felt bad for it when she threw a last glance over her shoulder and seeing him looking at her with sorry eyes, like he understood what kind of a partypooper he was.

…

Thorin walked back outside again as he was done talking with Gandalf and Beorn. Their news was indeed interesting, but he couldn’t keep his mind away from Sandra and he sighed heavily as he sat down outside the house, leaning back against the wall and lit his pipe.

What first had struck him, was their age – for humans, they were considered as grownups, but from a dwarf’s perspective, they were far from that; Kili were 77 and the youngest one, and Sandra was 22. Thorin himself were 195 years and it wouldn’t be long until he reached his dusk. What could he offer her?

Which led him to the fact that they were two different races – well, he knew he wasn’t the first one to fall for a human’s beauty, but he also had his lineage that made this slightly bothering; he was a Durin, son of kings and hopefully a king to be. Would it even be possible?

And with that last thought, he also knew that they were facing a dragon and the thought of binding to someone that might be turned to ash during this quest, scared him. He had seen good and brave men and women being incinerated before and he wouldn’t see that again, and especially not one he held close to his heart.

He buried his face in his hands – had he admitted to himself that he already held her close to his heart?! He sighed heavily for then looking up at the stars, wondering how big his mistake was. He tried to tell himself he just had been in complete celibate for a way too long time and that this was just the result of itching a bite.

He sighed, also thinking of that it would be complete foolishness to open yourself to someone that might as well disappear the next day, as he had no idea of what Gandalf planned. He doubted they would be gone tomorrow, but he knew, deep inside, that sooner or later the spell would force them to leave and inhaled smoke from his pipe to strangle the feeling of melancholy in his chest. But then he remembered the first night, when he spoke with Gandalf and for a moment looked at Sandra, when their eyes met and that kicking feeling in his abdomen that made his heart skip a beat and a warmth spreading to his face, and he knew he had felt that way since. When she spoke to him, he always listened, either because she was sharing wise words or telling something funny, and because her voice was so soft and wonderful. He realized he had fallen completely for her.

“What bothers you?” he heard a kind voice from the door.

He looked up and saw Wilhelmina leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed and her face with a kind expression. He sighed as he spoke. “I’m thinking of treasures lost and those that will be lost.”

“Why?” she asked and sat down beside him, ignoring his absent look. She looked at him for a moment before she asked directly. “Tell me, what did you and Sandra do by the river?” Thorin looked at her with lifted eyebrows. “I know her that well – something happened. She’s been silent, she went to bed early and lay awake for a long while with a distant look in her eyes, sometimes smiling, sometimes looking regretful, before she fell asleep with a foolish smile.”

“It could have been worse.” Thorin sighed. “We kissed, the kiss developed and if it wasn’t for Beorn showing up, well, you figure out. And now as we spoke again, I courted her, but again we were interrupted.”

“Well, it’s been quite obvious from the beginning that this would happen.” Wilhelmina said with a kind smile.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Thorin looked up at the sky. “First of all I wonder what I imagined I could bring her except from pleasure in the moment – I’m an old dwarf, she’s a young human. I’m heir to a lost kingdom, she has her entire life ahead of her, yet I am bringing you with on a potentially deadly adventure. And if we survive this, there will be a time when you will have to leave Middle Earth.” He turned to look at Wilhelmina, his face bothered. “Who am I fooling?”

“Nobody knows how long we’re going to stay here, if we survive. Should you possibly wait forever for nothing, when you could have had it all? And if this quest means our death, should we waste the chances we have?” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders. “You live only once.”

Thorin sighed and looked to the ground. “I’m afraid I’ve fallen for her, the one love a dwarf can have in life, I’ve spent on a human so different from me and I don’t even know if she’s going to stay.”

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Thorin, if that’s what you hoped for.” She said and he looked at her. “Listen to your heart, it will always guide you.” She said and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Thorin looked at her before he looked down again for a while, then he looked at her again. “I never believed that I would receive such advices from a 19 years old human girl.”

“Just shows how wrong you’ve been, old eagle.” She smiled and got up. “It’s late, we need sleep.”


	7. of Branches and Skirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So our friends ventures on. I feel sorry for Rita and Thorin... Sort of a lazy chapter, I just had too much fun with branches, dares and Bolg. I'm so sorry, Bolg (not really, I bet you look good in a kilt)

“Damn Beorn, these aren’t ponies!” Wilhelmina protested as they were introduced to their mounts for the following days – she had never had any problems with horses, but that was mostly because she watched them at a safe distance. The ponies they had in the beginning of the journey were okay because they were so small. These ‘ponies’ Beorn now allowed them to borrow for a while, were anything else than small; they looked like Gypsy Vanner Horses, which meant that they were far bigger than any horse she had ever encountered – the small fjordhorses back home in Norway were petite compared to this.

“You asked for something to ride on.” Beorn said and lifted his eyebrows to Wilhelmina.

“Yes, PONIES.” Wilhelmina sighed.

“Pony, horse – they’re just the same.” Beorn shrugged his shoulders.

“Ponies are smaller!” Wilhelmina cried – how the hell were they going to get Rita up onto these long-legged beasts?!

“These are smallest I have.” Beorn smiled and patted Wilhelmina’s shoulder.

“Beorn! Do you have a size smaller?” Bofur called from where he was sitting on his ‘pony’, but his legs barely reaching below the saddle. At the same time, Sandra was riding around with a big grin, finally having a horse that was about the size she preferred – she already had the perfect chemistry with her horse as they were trotting in big with long, slow steps and Sandra was almost floating with the moves. “Ignore her.” Bofur mumbled as he had just spotted Sandra’s show-off; she had proclaimed that this was something for her, as they weren’t so unlike the Norwegian dolehorses she was riding on back home, as the only difference seemed to be the colours; these were spotted, not entirely brown or black.

“Sorry, no.” Beorn said, glad to see that someone seemed to like the horses.

“I’M GONNA DIIIIEEEEE!” It was Rita, as predicted. She certainly got a panic attack as she saw the horses, and desperately tried to figure out a way she didn’t have to go by horse. 

“You could ride with someone.” Wilhelmina kindly suggested, hoping that it wouldn’t be Thorin this time.

“IT WILL KILL MEEEE!” Rita screamed and crouched down in a fetus position and rugged back and forth, holding around her legs and crying loudly.

“Sandra, can you stop your egotrip and come here and help us?” Fili called across the dwarves that were circled around Rita, wondering what to do.

“Fine!” Sandra called back and let the horse gallop the distance and as she got there, she graciously slid off her horse and walked up to Rita and made the dwarves roll their eyes. “Hey, you can sit on my horse. I promise to not go fast unless we really have to.”

“NOOOO!” Rita cried and stared up at the horse.

“Hey come here…” Sandra opened her arms and Rita crawled up in them. For an hour they tried to calm her down, but whatever they did, it was of no effort. They had to set off but it seemed like they would be much delayed until Thorin got tired and did as “we used to do back in my childhood when we refused to do as our parents told us to” and simply smacked the back of Rita’s head with a branch so she passed out. “THORIN, WHAT THE-“ Sandra started and stared at him, then at the unconscious Rita and back at Thorin, with utter shock in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, raising children isn’t as brutal now as it was. I made sure of that, I still have scars…” Thorin mumbled and threw the stick away while the dwarves applauded him.

“Yeah, that’s fine but… REALLY?!” Wilhelmina cried out and checked Rita’s pulse. “Oh, she just passed out…”

“Come on, we don’t kill our companions for something as ordinary as a panic attack.” Balin chuckled under his beard. “And Thorin, I’m still sorry for that scar. It wasn’t easy babysitting you, you had a strong will since the moment you were born. Your defiant age was horrible.”

”You always say that.” Thorin mumbled. “Get her up in the saddle, we’ll have to leave!”

“How are you expecting her to ride when she’s unconscious?!” Sandra looked at the dwarves with confused eyes.

“Oh that’s easy!” Beorn chuckled and picked up Rita and laid a blanket on the saddle before he laid her across it, and with a few ropes had made sure she wouldn’t fall off.

“She looks like a road-kill…” Wilhelmina looked at the sleeping Rita.

“Don’t worry, she’ll just have a slight headache when she wakes up!” Bofur grinned from where he was sitting on his own horse.

“And another panic attack…” Sandra mumbled.

“Then we’ll just hit hear again.” Dwalin patted Sandra’s shoulder as he walked past her.

“She’ll be dead before we reach Mirkwood…” Wilhelmina whispered.

“Or grown a head as thick as the dwarves.”

*

That evening they found shelter among some trees on the plain where the ground was dry and they could make a good fireplace. Sandra was right, considering Rita; every time she woke up, she did so with a scream and a panic attack, and Dwalin ended up riding beside her the entire way just to smack her unconscious every time, and he enjoyed it. Thorin just rolled his eyes, glad that he didn’t have to share his horse with her.

“Could you take a look at my head?” Rita groaned as she sat down between Sandra and Wilhelmina, gently rubbing the back of her head. “I think I’m bleeding.”

Wilhelmina took a look, for then sighing loudly and glaring at Thorin and Dwalin. “You are…”

“What?! Is it serious?!” Rita hissed and started to fumble in her hair to find the source.

“Stop that!” Sandra said and put Rita’s hands down. “We’ll let Oin take a look at it.” Sandra said and nodded to Oin.

“If I had done this with a baton back home, I’d lost my right to work as police…” Rita growled.

“But they don’t have any rights to lose by beating you senseless, just their dignity.” Wilhelmina smiled and patted her shoulder.

“We’re sorry!” Dwalin called from the other side of the camp before chuckling with Thorin.

“That was for breaking my ribs!” Thorin called and a rare smile was seen on his face.

“I did that to save your fucking life, broody!” Rita snarled.

“Same here! You’d kill yourself, the horse and possible the unfortunate rider if you were awake!” Thorin called back and Dwalin gave him a high five before they butted their heads together and laughing.

“I can’t believe it…” Rita sighed while Oin checked her cut.

“Well, it is a bit entertaining. A tiny bit.” Wilhelmina giggled. “Look, he’s happy!”

“Sandra, I’m seriously worried that you are weak-legged for him. You remember you told me about Joffrey in Game of Thrones? What if Thorin is like that? What if he and Dwalin kills us in disgraceful ways just to jerk off??” Rita begged and looked at Sandra.

“You’ve been knocked too many times…” Sandra giggled. “If you manage to face your fears, you won’t be beaten anymore. And well – I’d rather die watching them jerk off, instead of being turned to chop suey by some nasty, smelly goblins.”

“Sandra, are you drunk?” Rita stared at Sandra.

“On the love of honey, baby!” Sandra giggled and fought to not burst out laughing by her joke none of the others seemed to catch at the moment.

“I wish the ring had never come to me… I wish none of this had happened...” Rita whispered and Sandra facepalmed.

“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Rita, besides the will of evil. And that is an encouraging thought.” Wilhelmina said and tried to sound like Gandalf.

Oin looked at them with a lifted eyebrows as Rita started to howl and embraced Wilhelmina in a tight hug and whispered about her being the only one who understood her. Gandalf took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at them with lifted eyebrows, looking rather confused. He might have somehow recognized the way Wilhelmina spoke and her choice of words, and Rita’s reaction was some of a sight too. The dwarves just looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and silently thought that they would never be able to fully understand these human girls that had showed up half naked by a river or running down the streets of Bree.

“What was that?” Fili asked Sandra as she had been walking over to her bag with supplies from Beorn and took a large sip of the mead.

“Something Gandalf here will say in… 77 years.” Sandra mumbled before she realized what she was doing. “Actually I have no idea. It just sounded like something Gandalf could have said.” She explained in a hurry and Fili lifted one eyebrow before she shrugged his shoulders. “And 77 is my lucky number. In lotteries I always try to get ticket number 77, or something with 77 like 177, 277… You get me.”

“Sandra, are you drunk?” Fili asked, noticing that the pouch of mead had shrunken.

“How?” Sandra said and grinned.

“Because half of the mead is gone…”

“I can’t help it but I love mead. And it might start to affect me.” Sandra just gestured with her hand.

“How long have you been drinking?” Fili asked with a slightly shocked frown.

“I got bored an hour before we made the camp.” Sandra sighed and walked over to Fili. “I’m bored.”

“Well, we could surely see if we found something to entertain ourselves with.” Fili shrugged his shoulder.

“Any suggestions?” Sandra asked, resting her chin on her hand.

“Look, I have a bottle!” Kili grinned and almost jumped down to sit between Fili and Sandra.

“Oh, this is great!” She squealed and clapped her hands.

“Looks like we’re up to truth and dare!” Fili smirked.

“Oh brilliant, you know that game here in Middle Earth as well?”

“Of course we do! Oldest party trick there is!” Bofur said and sat down, facing Sandra. “And you even sit by a flat spot, so this will be great.”

“Hey, let me join!” Wilhelmina came running, and soon Rita, Dwalin, Nori, Ori (a bit against his will, though), Bombur, Balin (since Sandra promised to kiss his cheek) and Bilbo had joined them as well.

“Okay, first round!” Rita boomed, ignoring the few dwarves that were left by the fire, claiming to keep guards. She spun the bottle and it stopped, pointing at Bofur. “Oh, truth or dare, Bofur?”

“I go for… Truth…” he said, trying to look thoughtful.

“The first kiss you ever got? Your mother and grand-mother does not count!” Rita grinned and all eyes were turned on Bofur.

“Oh that one is a bit tricky… Will my cousin count as other family members, or should I say Dina?”

“DINA?!” Dwalin boomed and stared at Bofur – Dina was his younger sister.

“It was in school, we were just kids! But I can remember it as it was yesterday! Her freckles, her missing tooth… It belongs to the story that it was truth or dare.” Bofur said to his defence, while the rest of the company laughed, except Dwalin.

“At least it was just truth or dare…”

“Fine, you over-protective troll. Give me the bottle!” Bofur called and Rita handed it to him. And so the game went on, but after a couple of rounds, it pointed at Sandra.

“Okay, dare!” she said, still trying to breathe properly after Bilbo had to massage Bifur’s ears. The poor dwarf had jumped as he suddenly felt a pair of cold hands on his ears.

“Oh this is good!” Dwalin twisted his hands. “Make Thorin join us. There are so many things I’d like to ask that old badger about!”

“Ooooh!” went through the group, and for a moment the other dwarves turned to look at them, before returning to their own discussions.

“Oh crap.” Sandra sighed and got up, with burning red cheeks. She walked over to where Thorin sat and looked down at him with the most innocent smile she could put up. “Thorin?”

“What?” he said and looked up at her, immediately getting a feeling that somehow the game had turned to do something humiliating to him.

“I just wondered how brave you are?” she grinned, still a bit drunk on the mead.

“Why?” he frowned, slightly worried.

“Because you’re a King, in some way I haven’t figured out yet, or I’m just too drunk to remember the details, and a King needs to brave.” She shrugged her shoulders, and behind her Oin facepalmed. “So I think that you should really join our game – it’s the biggest bravery test you’ll ever find!”

“Bravery test?”

“Wilhelmina had to kiss Fili, and Kili had to tell about his most embarrassing moment considering girls. You need balls of steel to join this.”

“And you think it’s very… kingly… to play that game?” Thorin asked with a small smile, trying to avoid to laugh by the silliness in this poorly hidden dare.

“Of course, you need to relate to your company to have their loyalty, and they really would love to see their King relaxing with them in a funny game that need some guts!” she grinned, knowing she had a point in it.

Oin looked at Thorin with a slightly amused grin, nodding him to join them – Thorin bet it was because that old owl would love to see him do some stupid things. He noticed that Oin and Gloin seemed to agree, while Dori shook his head. Bifur seemed to be very enthusiastic. 2 against 1. Damn.

“Fine, only if I get to keep the mead away from you the next days.” Thorin sighed and got up, and refused to admit even to himself that he joined mostly because he hoped that Sandra had to do something he’d like to see.

…

“Oh Thorin, truth or dare?” Bofur smirked as the bottle pointed against the leader. Thorin made a sound that wasn’t easy to define, most likely because he had said truth last time and had to tell about his first time, which was because Dwalin got him drunk at the age of 34 (still very young among dwarves) and sent him off with what turned out to be a girl from Bree, who visited Ered Luin together with her family for trades, and later on claimed he had made her pregnant. Fortunately for Thorin, the kid turned out to be a half-elf so he had nothing to do with it, but his father had been furious for some time until the truth was revealed. Everyone laughed by the story, except Dwalin – he was roaring and rolling around on the ground, while Fili and Kili stared at their uncle with wide eyes.

“I don’t know if I want to try dare, but…” Thorin said low, biting his lip. “Dare…”

“Hm…” Bofur looked thoughtful while the others started to come with suggestions. “I’ve got it! You shall kiss – Sandra.” Thorin’s face turned pale while Sandra’s got a burning shade of red and the others seemed to like the dare. “And not just a quick kiss – a proper kiss of the kind that leave you breathless and blushing!”

“I’m already breathless and she’s blushing…” Thorin mumbled, starting to wonder why the hell he let himself convince to join this ridiculous game.

“Now kiss.” Bofur smirked and crossed his arms across his chest.

“Oh dear…” Sandra whispered; she definitely wanted to kiss Thorin, but the circumstances made it all awkward. Should they sit or stand? Or what? Not to mention that both of them were left with what could definately be defined as sexual frustration after that little incident a couple of days ago. 

Thorin got up and walked over to her and looked down at her for a moment. “I’m sorry.” He whispered and bent down to kiss her. And he really did kiss her the way that made you breathless and blushing, but also hungry for more – his tongue dived in and conquered her and she surrendered to his will and let him have it his way, ignoring the cheering and shouting from the others.

She was about to lay down as something disturbed the game. “Now what is this?” Gandalf’s voice came out of nowhere and everyone turned around and saw Gandalf standing there with one lifted eyebrow.

“Truth or dare!” Wilhelmina smiled innocently, while Sandra froze, one hand buried in Thorin’s hair and a leg tossed around his butt as she was halfway lying down. Thorin slowly parted from her, obviously trying to find a clever way to explain the situation, but he remained silent.

“To me it looked like some… Weird kink game from your world…” Gandalf mumbled and leaned to his staff. “I didn’t expect to find this after leaving you for an hour!” it sounded more like he was the teacher speaking to a class of naughty students in middle school than a company of more or less grown up dwarves. “And can you Thorin explain me why you are hovering over Sandra? Was that a part of the game?”

“Bofur dared me.” Thorin said straight. “And Sandra dared me to join the game because Dwalin dared her to convince me, and I have to say she’s a silver tongue since she made it sound like a good idea.”

“Silver tongue indeed…” Gandalf mumbled and walked away and a moment of silence fell over them before Sandra couldn’t remain silent anymore and broke out in an uncontrolled fit of laughter.

“Omg Sandra you’re so stupid!” Rita rolled her eyes and nudged her, but none of them could stop themselves from laughing now.

“I’m not the only silver tongue here…” Sandra said with a naughty smirk, making even Thorin laugh.

“Dare accepted! Thorin, spin the bottle!” Bofur called from across the laughing dwarves and the game went on.

*

*MEANWHILE SOMEWHERE IN MIRKWOOD*

“Anything new?” Bolg asked as he walked up to his father. “What does the master command?”

“He needs me here.” Azog said and tossed a little with his head so his blonde locks were flying in the wind. “But you still hunger for dwarf blood, don’t you?”

“ALWAYS” Bolg hissed, licking his lips, covered with dark red lipstick.

“Good. Because you will continue the hunt to slay the company.” Azog grinned and crossed his arms across his chest, his pink tank top stretching to its limits.

“With pleasure. Shall I try to bring back Oakenshield alive?” Bolg tilted his head, a wicked smile on his lips.

“Do so, we’re not done with that cookie jar yet.” Azog smiled. “But please, before you leave, get something else on than those skirts!”

“It’s a kilt dad, men wear them!” Bolg said and put his booted foot hard on the ground to demonstrate.

“I don’t care who wears them, it looks horrible! We can see your butt when you’re not standing up straight!” Azog rolled his eyes.

“Says you with the pumps!”

“GO TO THE TIMEOUT ZONE!” Azog roared and pointed at a tree not far from them.

“BUT DAAAD!” Bolg whined with tears in his eyes, eyes decorated with smoky makeup, as he walked over to it.

“You can go to slay those dwarves when you’ve learned to keep your mouth shut! And pull those stockings up a bit!”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW truth and dare is the lousiest way to make something happen, but I couldn't resist. I just had to make them do something silly out there in the wild.


	8. Not the Only Road They Ever Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So our company and completely lost girls are heading for Mirkwood and the emprisonment. Let's see what that part of the journey brings us, probably more violence and singing.
> 
> BONUS: the first smut of the story! Behold, o' mortals!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to apology: it's been about 2 months (I haven't dared to check the date) since last chapter, and it's a horribly long time. To explain why, since I think my readers deserve it, I can tell this: as some of you might have known, my private life has been a mess since February, and with too many downs and too few ups. I'm very thankfully for my friends and my boyfriend who has stood by my side during this period. That and many other things I'm engaged in during my spare time (which has felt more like a job these months). And since the last half of March I have focused on my exams, since the subject I've been taking the last year is on a master's level and it demanded that I for once took my exams a bit more seriously than usual. It has paid off, so it was worth it, but I'm sorry for all the delays it costed my other projects, like the fics.  
> I hope you can forgive me and understand, hopefully things will be more stabilized from now on.

“I knew this was coming, but it still sucks.” Sandra sighed as they watched Gandalf gallop away on the horse.

“It sucks. Big, hairy goat balls.” Rita mumbled and turned to follow the dwarves inside the forest.

“She has such a rich language.” Dwalin smirked and followed Rita.

“If Rita continues like that, half of the dwarves will be right up on her heels and swooning…” Wilhelmina said with lifted eyebrows as she and Sandra was the back troop, noticing how Dwalin seemed to look at her.

“A shame none of them look like pale, sophisticated, British guys.” Sandra giggled. “Now we just have to get through this forest. This, lovely, charming and hexed forest.”

“I should have brought a picnic basket.” Wilhelmina sighed as they walked through the gate.

"Well, we doe have some honey and cheese."

"And here must be some berries!"

*

“Can somebody please SHUT HER MOUTH?!” Thorin roared on their third day in the forest.

“Why?” Rita giggled after singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" and switched song on her iPod. “Oh this one is perfect, listen now guys!” she cleared her throat before she started to sing. “I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known! Don't know where it goes, but it's home to me and I walk alone!”

“Oh dear…” Sandra facepalmed and Thorin’s eyes grew dark as his nostrils widened in annoyance.

“I walk this empty street, on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams! Where the city sleeps and I'm the only one and I walk alone! I walk alone, I walk alone, I walk alone, I walk a...” Rita continued before she drew a deep breath and started to sing even louder. “My shadow's the only one that walks beside me! My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating! Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me! 'Til then I walk alooooone! Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah, aaah-ah, Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah!”

“She sings with PASSION.” Bilbo said with a distant voice and wet eyes.

“I'm walking down the line, that divides me somewhere in my mind! On the border line, of the edge and where I walk alone! Read between the lines, what's fucked up and everything's alright! Check my vital signs, to know I'm still alive and I walk alone-“

Rita stood still for a moment before her eyes rolled back in her skull and she fell forwards with her face down in the ground. All the dwarves stared at the source – it was Thorin, with a branch in his hands. “Sorry, she was driving me crazy.” He said, short of breath. "I actually feel crazy."

“We all are, the forest makes us crazy.” Balin said calmly, though disappointment was clear on his face.

“It doesn’t have to get worse.” He hissed and then picked up Rita and threw her over his shoulder. “Move on!”

“We needed the entertainment…” Kili sighed and corrected his backpack before he followed them.

“We can find something else.” Sandra smiled. “Like… My ship is filled with!"

"YES!" Wilhelmina said and her moment of shock by Thorin's actions was forgotten! "We start with the letter A! My ship is filled with annoyance!"

"What a shipload..." Gloin sighed.

*

"Sandra, where am I..." Rita mumbled as she woke up some hours later - her head ached, her mouth was dry, and as she opened her eyes she looked right down along somebody's back. "Oh hey there, that's a nice butt!" she grinned and slapped it.

"Slap my ass one more time, and I swear I'm not responsible for my actions." she heard Thorin say and her heart sank.

"Now excuse me, if I knew it was your ass I wouldn't have slapped it! And I don't like you threat about sexually abuse me!" Rita said and didn't even try to hide her insult.

"If it was as kind as that..." Thorin growled. "I talked about actions leaving you six feet under."

"Oh come on!" Rita rolled her eyes. "Your vision is so black and white, why not just dropping me down on my feet if you don't want me hanging over your shoulders and slap your ass!"

"Fine!" Thorin said and threw his arms up and Rita slid down his back and landed with her face first on the ground.

"YOU FILTHY LITTLE MIDGET!" Rita howled as she sat up, her mouth full of moldy leaves.

"YOU CALLED ME WHAT-" Thorin boomed, but was stopped as he the moment after crashed with his face in a pair of breasts.

"Now you better calm down or else I won't be very nice anymore..." Sandra said calmly and looked down at Thorin from where he was looking up at her, the upper half of his visible from between her breasts, who were only covered by her bra and the thin linen shirt.

If it was the warmth from one of her most female parts or the incredibly scary look on her strict face which could remind of a dragon about to make an inferno that made him back out, we will never know. Maybe it was both. Thorin's face turned red and he tried to find the words but they stopped on his tongue.

"And would you kindly move your face from my breasts?" Sandra asked calmly, still with her stern face and Thorin took two steps back, still his eyes locked with hers, before he slowly turned around and walked away.

"And he has always told us to not stare..." Kili mumbled to Fili.

"And as if that wasn't enough, he's even bold enough to bury his face before staring..." Fili sighed, trying to hide his laughing.

Thorin walked past them and gave them a look that could kill. "We will never let him forget this, will we?" Kili chuckled to his brother.

"Never!"

...

"Still, midget IS an insult..." Wilhelmina said low to Rita. "You should just have... Sworn or something..."

"Easy for you to say..." Rita mumbled.

"I thought you two had finally made friends." Sandra sighed and lifted her eyebrows to Rita.

"Well, this forest makes me short tempered."

"Well, he too." Wilhelmina said.

"Yeah. Though, nice catch Rita - that is the finest pair of buttocks I've seen in a long time." Rita smirked to Sandra.

"It is SO like you to spot that first in every situation! Police? Yeah right!" Sandra giggled.

*

Wilhelmina held her breath as she felt she was falling down - first the company had completely lost their mind, in the next moment there were some spiders, a sting in her side and then sleep. And now she was falling? Yes, Mirkwood was definately the worst part of the journey, and in her foggy mind she could recall this would only get worse. This whole journey was fucked up.

Softly she hit the ground and somebody cut her free from the webs. "Are you okay, lass?" Bofur asked as she sat up and gasped for air.

"Think so!" she mumbled and found that her sword was still in the sheath.

"Damn spiders!" she heard Rita hiss and as Wilhelmina turned to see, Rita had just knocked one unconscious with a thick branch.

"Whatever a police is, they are effective." Bofur mumbled as he pulled Wilhelmina up on her leg.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

A horrible scream filled the air and as Wilhelmina recognized the voice screaming, she remembered one thing: Sandra had a serious phobia for spiders. And as she ran over to help her, Sandra had already passed out in fear. Dwalin picked her up and ran away with an unconscious Sandra dangling on his shoulder.

That was the beginning of the wildest run Wilhelmina had ever experienced; running away from spiders as large as Suburbans and Vans and killing them if they got too close. It was almost a relief as the elves showed up, despite the fact that this meant yet another confrontation with what she would call racism.

They didn't even get a chance to say anything as they were lead to the dungeons of the Wooden Realm, and every time Wilhelmina tried to say something, she just got a nasty glare. They were placed in the dungeons, but to Rita and Wilhelmina's frustration, who was put in a cell together, Sandra was locked up in a cell all by herself.

"You can't just leave her alone!" Rita hissed through the bars.

Legolas just looked at her. "Is she hurt in any way?" he asked, a bored look on his face.

"I have no idea! She passed out in fear as she saw the spiders!" Rita begged.

"We'll take a look at her." Legolas said and walked away.

"FUCKING ELF, YOU'RE NOT AS SMART AS YOU THINK YOU ARE!!"

"Rita, I thought you would have learned that insults won't help..." Balin sighed from the cell beside them.

"Balin, it's called temper." Dwalin said from another cell.

"SHUT UP!"

...

" _What is this? Tauriel, there was a free cell for Thorin here!_ " Legolas groaned as he brought Thorin down from the rather unsuccessful meeting with Thranduil.

" _Ah, you see, Halarad was brought in for being way too drunk again. You know, he has these problems with alcohol after he found his wife in bed with their neighbour 70 years ago, he's still not over it..._ " Tauriel said and shrugged her shoulders. " _Did you really think of giving him the luxury of a cell alone?_ "

" _You have a point. We put him in the cell with the long-legged one, she takes more place than the others!_ "

" _Exactly._ " Tauriel grinned. Thorin rolled his eyes, sick of hearing elves speaking over his head.

He was pushed inside a cell and Balin asked him how the meeting went. As Balin had, unnecessarily enough, confronted him witht he fact that he had wasted their last hope, he heard somebody mumble from behind him. "It's not nice to tell somebody to eat poop."

He jumped and pushed his back against the bars until he realized it was Sandra. "What are you doing here?!"

"I'm just enjoying this wonderful view from this earthy, dark cell underground somewhere in Mirkwood, a wonderful architecture!" Sandra rolled her eyes and got up so he could see her in the dim light. "Seriously?"

"Sorry, you just scared me. I thought they would put me in a cell alone, hoping that I would break down by loneliness." Thorin mumbled and looked out.

"No, better put you in the same cell as the long-legged one, much more crowdy and annoying." she smiled and shrugged her shoulders as she walked up beside him.

"It could have been worse. You could have been horrible and annoying." Thorin said low with a small smile.

"Finally somebody who doesn't think I'm like that." Sandra smiled and laid her hand on Thorin's shoulder.

"No, you're just very noisy."

"I'm quite used to hear that. Look forward to spend ages with me in a tiny cell."

"I suddenly felt like I can't breathe..."

*

“No Thorin, I’m going nuts in here. We’ll be stuck here forever and I’m going to die as a virgin, a fucking virgin!” Sandra hissed and buried her face in her hands. It was their third day in prison and Sandra had started to get interesting ideas about the future. Yesterday she had considered to sell herself as a concubine to Thranduil, but Tauriel had just given her a disgusted look as Sandra tried to convince her, telling she was a virgin and everything. Legolas had disapproven her offer, and she couldn't understand why until Thorin mentioned that Legolas was Thranduil's son, saying that being a douche was a trademark of the family. “I’m never going to taste the sweet nectar of love!”

“Sweet?” Thorin said low and chuckled a bit.

“You know what I mean!” Sandra sighed.

“Yeah I know.” Thorin said and smiled a bit and a moment of silence followed.

Sandra moved over to where he sat, looking him deep into his eyes. “We can do something about it.” She whispered, and he lifted his eyebrows. “I’ve been ready for this for a long time.” she begged, putting on her most needing and sensual face.

“Here?” Thorin frowned to her.

“The guard just stands on his post unless he hears anything, so if we are silent he won't see anything…”

“I’m not going to take an advantage of you.” Thorin said low and calmly.

“You’re not, I’m asking you!” she begged and moved even closer.

“I still feel like I’m taking advantage of you when we are caught in this situation and you for a moment have lost faith in everything.” Thorin said kindly. “I might change my mind if we’re going to stay in here for longer than a couple of weeks.”

“Okay, I see what you mean.” Sandra sighed and plumped down beside him. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Thorin whispered and some silent minutes went by.

“Though, we still have hands…” Sandra then said.

Thorin sat up straight and looked at her with a frown and his mouth opened and closed a few times before he found the words. “How can you still be virgin when you seem to have such needs??” he whispered with confusion.

“Because… With other guys I’ve met… We have played with hands and mouths, but when it came to that, I always got so damn nervous, even scared, and backed off.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

“I see…” Thorin said and leant back against the wall. “I was nervous as hell my first time too.”

“You were?” Sandra said and smiled. “You, who seem so confident and fearless in everything you do?”

“That confidence is something I’ve built over time, and I’m not fearless.” He said with a smile. “I had to get it up again three times before I made it.” He said the last with a chuckle. “The poor lass was close to grow impatient with me, but I think she was pleased, in the end. At least she said so, I hope she’s not disappointed when looking back at her first time now.”

Sandra laughed gently and shook her head as the mental imagine of a young Thorin being nervous as hell was somewhat entertaining. “Well, good to hear that someone got over those nerves and made it.”

“Your time is coming too. We’re not going to stay here forever.” He smiled gently to her.

“If we were to stay here forever…” Sandra then said and shrugged her shoulder. “Would you have done it then?”

“I guess I would.” He said and carefully bit his lip, knowing he would. He desired her more than anything, and he fought to remain calm but it was a battle he was losing. “We still have hands.”

“We still do.” Sandra smiled and moved to sit across is lap. She leant over him and kissed him as her hands traced down his torso. He kissed her back and his hands rested on her waist, before one of them found her breasts and kneaded them, one by one as the other hand slid down to her butt and squeezed it gently.

She started to unto his breeches, just enough to slip her hand in whip out his already hard shaft. She let a long breath out as she felt the soft, warm skin against her palm and the hardness beneath it. A gasp escaped from him as she started to pump it, slowly at first, before she added more pressure and increased the pace till she saw that she had found the exact right combination by the expression of his face to judge. Oh, he looked so wonderful with his head back against the wall, his eyes barely open while he tried to remain silent. His hands sneaked under her clothes, exploring every inch he could reach while she kissed his neck, bit his ear and buried her other hand in his hair before their lips met again in a hungry kiss.

“Sandra, I… Please… I’m there…!” he hissed against her lips seconds before his body jerked once before he stilled and he bit down on her shoulder to silence his groan. Warm and sticky fluid ran over her fingers while she still pumped him slowly with a loose grip, listening to how his breath turned slower as his hands carefully caressed her body.

He kissed her gently through the fabrics of her shirt where he had bitten, hoping that it wouldn’t leave any marks. He carefully moved and she got off from him and sat down on the floor, and he moved so he was in control. She laid down along the wall and he leant over her and kissed her neck while his hands undid her breaches enough to let a hand slide in under them. Sandra arched her back as he touched her where she desired it the most, and soon he had found a delightful pace with a thumb on her clit. She strangled a moan as he slid one finger inside and soon found a spot that sent sparks out to every nerve in her body. Only minutes later she trembled and buried her face in his mane, taking in every scent from him as she saw stars from the pleasure rushing through her.

"Now that was something..." she whispered and tried to not giggle.

"Once we're out of here, I'm going to show you more." he said low and kissed her lips. She parted her lips to let his tongue in.

As they parted, she smiled to him. "We better find a way out."

"I'm on it." Thorin smirked as he pulled away from her. If the others ever got to know that Thorin's main goal about getting out from the dungeons was to claim Sandra as his, they would probably have knocked him down.

…

Legolas walked up to Tauriel, obviously amused by something. Tauriel lifted her eyebrows to him, wondering what amused him so. “ _Is there anything new?_ ”

“ _It seems like our favourite couple of imprisoners are making dwumans._ ” Legolas snickered.

“Oh that will be fun in a few months…” Tauriel sighed, not really surprised. She had seen it coming.

*


	9. Wetter Than Wet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the great escape. We will meet elves, orcs, blueberries and Bard!

“Damn you, Wilhelmina, damn you...” Rita mumbled as she studied their homemade chess set and Wilhelmina's last move.

“You know, you either have to sacrifice your King or Queen now...” Wilhelmina grinned.

The two girls had found fitting rocks on the floor and made a chess set by drawing the board on the ground and paint the “black bricks” with red lipstick.

“Hah Dwalin, it seems like your wine ration is mine!” Nori grinned as he looked through a hole in the wall. Dwalin looked like a kid who's just got the message that christmas is cancelled.

“Dammit!” Rita hissed – this was embarrassing, at home she had shelves filled with chess trophies! She blamed the situation. It really had to be. “That was my last hope!”

“I really don't hope so.” Bilbo said and the two girls turned their heads so quickly that their necks hurt.

Immediately all of the company turned excited and called out their joy, to Rita's embarrassment. “Yeah, just call out any louder, and our hope is gone!” she spat out as she helped Bilbo unlock the door to Balin's cell.

“Sorry. The taste of freedom, it's like drug.” Dwalin grinned. “Where's Thorin?”

“They should be down here.” Rita said and took the lead and soon most of the company was freed and they found the mentioned cell.

“Now that's something.” Bilbo said as he looked through the door. In there, Thorin and Sandra was sleeping, with Sandra lying on her back, holding tightly against Thorin like a teddy bear, and he was sleeping as well. He didn't seem to mind that his face was resting on her chest.

Dwalin walked in as the door was unlocked and kicked Sandra's butt. “Wake up, kitten!”

“WHAT?!” she hissed in surprise and threw Thorin off her so he smashed into the wall. From him there came a groan as he slowly tried to breathe again. “Sorry about that...” Sandra mumbled and got up. “What the-” she started as she realized what was going on. “Thorin, come!!” she hissed and grabbed him from the floor.

Slowly he came to realize what was happening, and a big grin spread across his face – it seemed like he was one step closer to claim Sandra as his, after all. His plan about stealing the keys from the guards with toothpicks wasn't necessary after all!

They followed Bilbo down and further down, and Rita started to grow excited: the barrel ride! She jumped and clapped her hands as she saw them and quickly found her way to the top barrel.

Bilbo stared at her. “How did you guess my plan?”

“I had a good feeling about it.” Rita grinned while she made herself comfortable.

The dwarves started to discuss what they obviously found to be a completely idiotic idea, but Wilhelmina rolled her eyes. “If you actually want to get out here today and not in years... GET IN THE FUCKING BARRELS!”

Everyone stared at her strict voice that made them all jump even though she just whispered – she, who always was so sweet and never raised her voice or did anything scary.

Thorin stared at her before he whispered. “Do as they say. Get in the barrels. Quick!” Now none of the dwarves questioned the command. Bilbo still looked at Rita in confusion.

Soon all of them were in the barrels, and Bofur barely got to ask what was next before Bilbo pulled the handle and the barrels were falling down to the river beneath. Sandra got soaking wet instantly and not in the good way. They didn't know for how long they waited for Bilbo, but everyone except Wilhelmina squealed in joy as she almost got hit in the head by him. As majestically as he could, Thorin took the lead to guide them to safety and the hope of getting Sandra to his bed someday.

“3...2...1...” Sandra mumbled.

“What are you counting down to?” Balin asked and looked at her with a lifted eyebrow before he got splashed down by water.

In the next moment they heard the elvish horn. “That.” Sandra said and lifted her eyebrows. “Prepare for action!”

And she was right in her assumptions. As a matter of fact, she couldn't be that wrong either. “Just wait for the orcs.” Rita mumbled as they approached the gate, which as expected, closed.

“Better get a good place?” Sandra said and paddled quicker with her hands and managed to crash with Thorin's barrel. He growled in frustration as he feared the plan had failed and looked at Sandra, who just smiled. “At least we're stuck together again then, aren't we?” she said with the most relaxed voice. “Wow, that suits you well.”

“What?” Thorin barked.

“Wet, sticky shirt. Very good.”

“Sandra, we are most likely getting locked up again, unless you have a brilliant idea!”

“Wait for the orcs.” Sandra said and studied her nails.

“What-”

And then the first elf was taken down by the arrows from the orcs. It was only a question of seconds before it was complete chaos and now Thorin looked at a Sandra with a questioning face.

Kili quickly saw the opportunity they had and climbed up. Wilhelmina, who was next to him, climbed up as well. “Kili, watch out!” she called out as she jumped on him so they both fell down and Bolg's arrow barely missed Kili.

“Whoa, thanks!” Kili breathed out in shock.

“The lever!!” Wilhelmina gasped and they both crawled over to it and pulled it down.

They both laughed together for a moment and did the high five, but then Bolg almost hit Wilhelmina's ear and they both hurried down the best they could. She pushed Kili down, but then Bolg aimed for her again and she had to jump sideways and climb over the wall. She jumped for the barrel but elegantly missed it and was pulled under water. For a few seconds she fought to not be pulled under again by the strong streams and managed to get hold on a branch.

She gasped for air and shook the water and the wet hair out of her face, only to find that the company was long gone already.

“Crap.” Even the orcs had ran past her, with the elves on their heels. “Now, this is interesting...” she mumbled before she dragged herself to the shore. She pulled her shirt off and twisted the water out of it, before she sat down on a rock and kicked her boots off to pour the water out. A frog jumped out as well and it wasn't easy to tell which of them who was most surprised. She got up to get her trousers off and twist them as well – what was she going to do now, flee from Mirkwood on her own? She sat down on the rock again, thinking hard – now, if her memory wasn't wrong, she was facing a peninsula right now. Which meant, if she took the short cut and just ran across it, she could have a chance to find them again.

She got up and ran the best she could, hoping that both elves and orcs was following the river.

'Damn, typical of me to get in this kind of situations, I'll never learn...' the thought to herself as she jogged through the forest, keeping her eyes open for elves, orcs and spiders. 'Just because I hoped to free Kili from that arrow and- oooooh, blueberries!!'

While Wilhelmina was eating berries, her mind started to wonder off again. 'If I could only know he was the right guy for me. I'm not even sure if I like guys at all... And I'm not sure if I like girls either. Maybe I could have both a guy and girl. We could be a happy family together! Maybe polylove isn't that stupid at all. If I could find a way for it to work, and maybe even legal... Maybe dwarves are practicing it, since they are lacking women anyways. But I should know about it by now.' she sat up straight and thought hard about it. No, she couldn't imagine Thorin sharing Sandra with anyone. Or maybe under certain circumstances. Like saving the dwarf race. On the other hand, Sandra would be a bad choice for breeding for that purpose. Double win for Thorin then.

'Damn I need to find out what I really like. Except from kittens, laws and society questions. And music. Maybe I should gamble on Fili and see if it works out. Especially if he likes music. And kittens.' she sighed and got up and continued on her search for the company. As she climbed up a hill, she saw that she had been right in her assumptions – she had almost caught up on the company. And she spotted her golden chance – there was a tree trunk lying across the river, she could jump in her barrel from there!

She ran the best she could and she was starting to fear that she would miss it. Damn those blueberries!! As she got closer, she could see that she would miss the trunk and she cursed as she decided to just jump from a cliff.

The barrel almost sank from her hard crash landing in it and it popped up again with such a power that she almost drowned Dwalin.

“WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?!” he roared with eyes wide of utter shock.

“I fled and then I jumped!” she gasped as she had spat out about a litre of water. She shook her hair out of her face and noticed Rita was missing. “Where's Rita?”

“She's there.” Fili pointed at the shore.

“What the... WHY?” Wilhelmina asked in surprise as she could see Rita running with a sword in her hand after 5 orcs with panic painted all over their faces, and Rita's face was stained with black orc blood.

“She got provoked.” Fili shrugged his shoulders. “It's been quite interesting, actually. Sandra's been busy playing Kraken at the front – at least that's what she call it, when she's pulling orcs under water and holds them there till they stop struggle. Rita climbed up on shore as an orc tried to hit her with arrows repeatedly, she claimed it turned out personal. And since then she's been running after orcs and has stabbed down each orc who got too close.”

“Wow. Just wow.” Wilhelmina said, surprised at the brutality from her friends. Especially as she heard Sandra cackle with an insane laughter and declared she had just drowned orc number 13. Maybe Sandra had changed personality after drinking too much water against her will, at least Fili claimed that.

…

“Anything behind us?” Thorin called out.

“Not that I can see!” Balin answered.

“Rita has either stabbed them or Sandra drowned them. What's left must have fled if they had any wits!” Dwalin chuckled. Rita just glared at him as she cleaned her face from orc blood with one hand and paddled with the other.

“I think we outran the orcs!” Bofur said after spitting out water.

“Not for long.” Thorin answered.

“SHORE!” Sandra groaned, exhausted after drowning 21 orcs with her hands.

“Bombur's almost drowning!” Dwalin called out.

“We make it to the shore!” Thorin commanded and they tried the best to change the direction of their barrels, giving up all thoughts about majesty. Only Thorin could do it anyways, there he was poking the barrels with a stick to help them change direction.

It was a few moments of clumsy chaos as they climbed out of their barrels. The dwarves' stylish hair and beards was long gone after the wet and wild ride, and they looked more like drowned cats than pride heirs of Durin. Wilhelmina fell into the river as she tried to climb out of her barrel and Fili had to jump back into the river to help her as she got stuck in a branch.

“Thank you!” she gasped as Fili got her free.

“No problem.” he smiled and chuckled a bit. “Are you okay?”

Wilhelmina could almost hear the romantic music that played in her mind as her chestnut brown eyes met Fili's steel blue ones. She took his hand as he helped her up on her feet when the water was shallow enough, and she cursed the presence of the other – she could do unspeakable things with him right then and there.

“Yes.” she breathed and tried to smile, but instead she slipped on a rock and almost fell again and Fili had to catch her in his arms again. “This is starting to remind of the classic romance movies back home.” she said low and looked up in Fili's face.

“Movies?” he asked, laughing a bit.

“Uhm, moving pictures telling a story. Never mind. It's just a classic that a clumsy girl has to be saved by a guy. Quite sexist actually, I wish a girl could save a clumsy guy one day. Don't misunderstand me, I really appreciate that you help me, I like it pretty much actually.”

“I like it when you speak of so much with so few words.” Fili chuckled.

“No time for romance! We have an orc pack on our tail!” Thorin barked and Fili almost dropped Wilhelmina into the river.

“That old dog.” Fili mumbled. “Sorry.”

“Ah, let me say what Sandra would have said if she was in my shoes: that was the right arse farting.” Wilhelmina smiled and followed Fili back to the shore.

So there they sat, a halfway drowned bunch of escapees, soaking wet from top to toe and with nothing else than what they were wearing. It looked dark; no food, no weapons. Sandra was starting to make fishing hooks with a piece of wood and a sharp stone while she wondered how to make a thread as thin as possible without weaken it. Wilhelmina started to collect dry pieces of wood from the forest around them while Balin was making a small fire to warm them until Thorin had figured out a plan – as they had just discussed, they had no weapons, a lake was between them and the mountain, they had no mounts, and the orc pack was getting closer by the minute. They would need a plan.

“Oh look!” Rita said as she fished out something from her bra. Bilbo frowned at her. “The iPod and the speakers!” she grinned and turned it on, and 'Rivers of Babylon' played out from the speakers.

“How did you hide it in there??” Bilbo asked while rita hummed along to the melody.

“A bra is every woman's secret purse.” Rita smiled as she turned off the iPod – she wasn't keen on being attacked by Kili again. “So all the things I don't want to be found, I hide in my bra.” she said as she picked up her phone. “Sandra, does our phone works?”

“No idea, we haven't tried.” Sandra said as she pulled out a thread from her shirt. “Has anyone found a worm here?” she asked the company – they all looked at her before they started to turn over rocks.

“Got one!” Oin exclaimed and handed it over to Sandra.

“Do you think we should try?” Rita asked Sandra and scrolled down her contact list.

In the next moment they all could hear Till Lindemann's voice call out from Sandra's phone and she sang along while she was fishing for the phone in her bra. “Iiiiiich ich glaub das zu träumen!” she then answered Rita's call. “die Mauer, im Rücken war kalt!”

“Good to hear that you still know how to speak and sing German.” Rita grinned as she realized that the phones were working.

“German?” Thorin asked and looked at Rita.

“The language of the European realm Germany. Lots of trades with Norway.” Rita shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh. Sounded like Khuzdul...” Thorin mumbled and turned to walk away.

“WAIT!” Sandra called out and hurried over to where Thorin and Rita stood. “Are you saying that German and Khuzdul are the same?!”

“Maybe not exactly the same-” Thorin said in surprise.

“So, wenn ich in Deutsch sprechen... Könntest du mir verstehen?” Sandra tried.

“Ja. Wie so?”

“Oh my gods.” Sandra mumbled and stared at Rita. Dwalin mumbled something to Thorin in Khuzdul, and tot heir surprise, they could understand pretty much of it, even though it sounded more old-fashioned and blended with something they could not understand.

“I though Tolkien's Khuzdul was based on hebraic!” Wilhelmina whispered.

“It sounds like it's a blend of German and Hebraic...” Rita whispered back.

Suddenly they sensed a presence of someone who was not in the company – a quick confrontation revealed that it was none less than Bard.

“Excuse me, you're not from Laketown, if I'm not mistaken?” Balin asked politely and approached Bard slowly. “That boat over there, it shouldn't be available for hire, by any chance?” Bard lowered his bow.

…

The three girls sat on some rocks and watched Balin trying to convince Bard while he put the barrels on his boat. So far, it wasn't going too well, as Bard seemed to very doubting about the intentions from 13 dwarves, 1 hobbit and 3 girls.

“He sounds like dad when he's doing businesses.” Sandra mumbled.

“Positive or negative?” Wilhelmina asked.

“I don't know. Dad is trying to get a better prize on sales, to put it that way. And he's been trying to sell his midlife crisis-motor bike for three years. On the other hand, he's been doing some real good investments.” Sandra shrugged her shoulders.

Right then Dwalin disturbed and made Bard reveal his doubts about them. Rita couldn't keep her mouth shot. “Dwalin, sometimes it's wise to keep your mouth shot. Learn from one who's burned her nose a couple of times!”

“Oh great, once you're done with your bickering with Thorin, you start with Dwalin!” Wilhelmina hissed and poked her.

“Come on, he's ruining the whole thing if he's going to bark around like that!” Rita bit back, as silent as she could.

“Well, keep going, if you want to scare Bard away from this.” Wilhelmina whispered.

“Speaking of Bard, they mentioned 'pay'. Do we have anything to pay with?” Rita asked a bit louder as to end the discussion with Sandra and Wilhelmina.

“We could flash our tits.” Sandra said and shrugged her shoulders. Thorin glared in her direction.

“Or legs. Considering the lower temperatures here, I bet it's a long time between each time you see a leg.” Wilhelmina suggested.

“Says the feminist!” Rita lifted her eyebrows and snickered.

“Sometimes you gotta do things for the matter of survival. I'd rather flash my legs or tits if that can get me away from the orcs!” Wilhelmina said with an indignant voice.

Then they noticed that all of the company and Bard looked at them. A long and embarrassing silence followed. “We've seen some orcs...” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

“I see.” Bard said, looking a bit confused.

“We're not from these lands, so we don't have any cash to pay with, that you could use.” Sandra explained. “And well, we guessed that you would want payment from all passengers and...”

“Don't think bad of us. We haven't offered our bodies in that way before. After all, we do have some self-respect.” Rita said. Balin buried his face in his hands. Thorin looked like he didn't know them. Dwalin and Kili looked like they would burst out laughing in any moment. Fili studied the soil and drew patterns with his boot. Bilbo slowly counted to 789.

“I... I shall not ask you to flash anything... Just don't... ruin the boat.” Bard said low and gestured with his hand.

“That's most kind of you, thank you!” Rita said and jumped down from the rock and walk aboard the boat. “All hands on deck!”

“So sweet of you!” Sandra smiled and kissed his cheek as she walked past him. Wilhelmina gave him a quick bow and a most charming smile.

Thorin looked at Balin with a gaze that asked for mercy, Balin patted his shoulder. “Be strong, lad.”


	10. Beer, beer, and far more beer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So finally they make it to Laketown. The youngsters are finally coming of age and Bard seems to be getting nerve problems. And I had to split this chapter in two, because I had so many ideas of partying dwarves that we can say they had a crazy weekend with way too much drinks. Oh and there will be more guest visitors from other fandoms. And you also get to meet a friend of mine's OC, the dwarf Bavor. I'm sure you'll like him!  
> http://charlesvane.deviantart.com/art/don-t-ask-352249515 here you have that gorgeous dwarf <3
> 
> Title inspired by this Norwegian drinking song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVTolGHykBI

“So, actually, when I was a teenager, I dreamed of becoming a sailor, but where we come from, you have to do maths and study the laws of physic, and I really sucked, the teacher actually threw me out of my class so I had to do aerobics instead – like really quick and exhausting dance, good stamina – but that meant that my dream about sailing the seas...”

“Is it really possible to speak on both in- and outbreaths?” Dwalin whispered and looked at Thorin.

“She can also speak while she's blowing the euphonium.” Wilhelmina said as to state a fact.

“I feel like I want to throw myself in the lake...” Ori whispered.

“I don't blame you. She's even sleep-talking.” Rita sighed. “Look at the poor man. He looks like he's dying inside.”

“I think he is dead. His body is just a shell that acts on habit. Bard never expected to die in that way.” Bilbo said and lifted his eyebrows.

“How do you know his name?” Dwalin asked with confusion.

“I asked him. You know, like what you do when you have to interact with people!” Bilbo rolled his eyes.

“I hear he has learned from the master of sarcasm.” Fili snickered.

“What?” Rita said and glared at him.

“...but at least I like my job, it fits perfectly for when I'm done with my education. So far I have handled psychotic patients, and I have to say that I think I've found my path. It's something about psychosis I find extremely fascinating. Do you have any sort of service for that around here? Bard?”

“Yes, sure...” Bard said low and kept looking ahead with empty yet sad eyes.

“You look seasick.”

“Happens now and then.”

“Convenient, you who literally live on a lake.”

“I know...”

“Sandra, have you forgot about 'don't distract the driver'?” Wilhelmina asked, hoping to save their poor rescuer.

“He's not the driver, he's the sailor!”

“Goes for the same thing, come here!” Rita barked.

“Nice talking with you Bard.” Sandra smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

Kili walked up to Bard with an apologetic face. “I'm sorry about that. She's sleep-talking too. If I'm not wrong, her mother claimed that she didn't start talking until she was 2 years old, and has never shut up since.”

“I thought I was going to jump on the lake...” Bard whispered.

“Me too...” Kili said and patted Bard's elbow. “I'm sorry.”

“Thanks...”

*

“Now this tea is exactly what I needed...” Rita mumbled with gratitude as Tilda handed her a large cup of tea.

“Well, it's the cleanest toilet I've ever seen.” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders. “All the shit just gets washed right away!”

“And they're eating fish from this lake...” Sandra lifted her eyebrows.

“It's simple. We just don't eat fish.” Wilhelmina smiled.

“Oh, hear.” Rita suddenly said as she was aware of raised voices on the other side of the door.

“Ah, it's the home-made weapons.” Sandra sighed.

“Should we go and flash our tits?” Wilhelmina suggested.

“You're the feminist!” Rita rolled her eyes.

“I want peace!!”

“Okay then!” Rita barked and put down her cup of tea.

“On the count of 3.” Sandra said and they got up. “1... 2... 3!”

They burst through the door and was about to lift up their shirts when they realized they weren't made of soft wool anymore, but fitted with strong linen inside and much longer and tighter and it all ended up looking like a pathetic attempt of quick un-dressing.

“Are you okay?” Bain asked as Rita had almost managed to flash her belly and her face hidden behind the shirt. Bard put his hand in front of his son's eyes.

“I ask the same.” Thorin said and did his best to hide his disappointment and shame.

“We heard raised voices!” Mina said as she gave up. Meanwhile Rita was succeeded and stood there, jumping on the spot and laughed with victory with her tunic pulled over her head. Sandra just turned away in shame as she realized the mistake.

“Do you think Smaug respond to tits?” Ori asked Dwalin with his voice full of surpressed curiosity.

“Well I don't think he's actually _seen_ tits...” Dwalin sighed, but the corner of his mouth twitched a little.

“He just eats them?” Kili added with poorly hidden amusement.

“Rita. We're not raising our voices anymore.” Balin said with blushing cheeks.

“Oh. Ok.” she said and pulled the tunic down. “I couldn't see anything under it.”

“Thank you.” Balin said with an un-necessarily friendly voice.

“Yeah, you can stay here till nightfall, then you do your plan!” Bard said and put up his most anonymeous smile before he went to his room and hid.

“What was all that about?!” Bain said as he could suddenly see again.

“You'll understand when you're older.” Bofur said and patted his shoulder.

“Fili? Did you notice something?” Kili suddenly asked his brother.

“What?”

“Uncle didn't even try to stop us from looking!”

“BY MAHAL! WE'RE OF AGE!”

“ME TOO!” Ori exclaimed and joined the two brothers in a dance of victory.

“I'm sorry, I forgot all about stopping him...” Dori whispered to Nori.

“Me too. It was quite... Unexpected.” Nori sighed as he watched the three youngest dwarves dance around.

“Rita, look at what you've done!!” Wilhelmina called out.

“I? It was _you_ who suggested it!!” Rita said, her voice dripping of pretended hurt.

“Whatever. The tea is getting cold!” Sandra threw her hands up in the air and went back.

*

“Yeah, I just stay here and wait for your signal.” Sandra hissed as the other sneaked out in the night to steal weapons. “I'll bring with some tea.” she kissed Thorin's cheek before he disappeared in the dark.

“They're so going to get caught.” Bard said from the kitchen table.

“Maybe, maybe not.” she said with a smile. Honestly, she had no idea – they had saved Kili from the poisoned arrow, so maybe they could get away with it?

…

“Okay, that's all I can carry.” Kili said as Thorin had pushed one more sword in his arms. “I can hardly see!”

“Good, get down.” Thorin commanded him, low and quick, before he started to fill Gloin's arms.

Kili was about to take the first step as a soft voice spoke from the shadows and a tall man with long, black hair stepped out from the shadows with a playful smile. “That looks heavy. Let me help you.”

“Who are you- aaaaah!” Kili barely got to say before he stepped over in surprise and fell down the stairs.

“Ouch. I bet that hurt.”

“What the- LOKI?!” Wilhelmina and Rita gasped out before the man disappeared.

“This is getting weird.” Wilhelmina whispered, but in the next second the alarm was raised. They grabbed a weapon each to defend themselves, but the guards were too many.

“This is embarrassing...” Rita mumbled as they were led out. “We're litterally getting Loki'd.”

“If it isn't an arrow, it's a trickster god...”

…

Sandra followed Bard – better that than trying to find the way herself. That, and the fact that it was way easier walking through the crowd if she pretended to be his shadow. And he smelled good, too.

She just pretended to coincidentally stop in the front row as Bard walked out. She knew his speech, she knew what was coming, and she had no idea on how to disturb it. She pretended to just stand there, until Nori spotted her and pulled her with him. “You're involved too.”

“I know...” she sighed. “I just had no idea on how to enter the scene.” She looked around and found Rita and Wilhelmina. “What happened?”

“LOKI.” they both said. “We'll explain later!”

“LOKI?!” Sandra asked again. “How-”

But the rest was drowned as the crowd cheered out loud. Obviously they had come to the same conclusion this time too. And that meant a bath!

*

“So, it was Loki making Kili fall...” Sandra saig thoughtfully as she dried her hair – the bath had been lovely, and the three ladies had gotten a room for themselves. “How?”

“I have no idea. Maybe the port key works for other universes as well?” Wilhelmina said as she tucked the towel around herself.

“It could be.” Rita said and sat down on her bed. “Weird as fuck.”

Then they heard knocking on the door and then they heard Bofur’s voice outside. “Is it safe to open the door?”

Rita looked around, as she was already fully dressed, but Wilhelmina and Sandra weren’t, but she saw they were wearing towels as they were picking up their clothes or drying their hair. “Sure!” Rita said and threw her legs up in the bed and stretched out, having great plans of sleep tonight.

Bofur opened the door and as always, with the playful smile but now there was something more. “I don’t know what you think of a party, but some of our guys have already managed to get us a nice deal about salted meat, potatoes and sour cream, and Thorin is trying to convince them to let us have three barrels of beer for a nice price as well. And I’ve heard rumours that the wine here is exceptionally good.”

Rita sat up and looked at Bofur. “Did you say… Salted meat, potatoes and sour cream? Cold potatoes?”

“Both warm and cold, whatever you desire.” Bofur crossed his arms and leant against the door frame with a smile. “So what do you say gals?”

“I’m in!” Sandra grinned and looked at Rita and Wilhelmina.

“Sure, why not?” Wilhelmina said smiling.

“And you’re asking?!” Rita asked and got up from the bed. “When?”

“Whenever you’re ready.” Bofur smiled and had to jump aside as Rita almost ran for the pub. He looked back at the two others with lifted eyebrows. “She’s hungry?”

“Hungry and missing food that reminds of home.” Sandra said and pulled a hand through her towel-dried hair and made sure it looked fine.

“Who isn’t?” Wilhelmina smiled – even she thought salted meat sounded delicious now and quickly got her trousers and shirt on and ran out, throwing the towel back.

“I hope we’re not late…” Sandra mumbled as she dropped her towel to get her trousers on.

“No, you’re not the only one using the opportunity to take a bath, I think all of us have. Thorin just got down, and I thought I heard some laughing and splashing from the room where Fili and Kili are staying.” Bofur said and politely turned away.

“Good! We were all quite smelly.” Sandra smiled and corrected her bra and pulled her new, clean shirt over her head. “Shall we go?” she smiled to Bofur, and reached out a hand.

“Sure my lady!” he grinned and took her hand.

…

“Hey, Wilhelmina, remember Drunken Sailor?” Sandra whispered as Wilhelmina got the guitar. “Do you think you can find the right tunes on this one?”

“I could try.” Wilhelmina smiled and tried different grips, and it didn’t take her long before she had found them. She smiled to Sandra as she took a sip of beer and in the next moment they started to sing. Rita, who sat between Fili and Kili immediately shouted out in joy as she recognized the tune and sang along.

“That song is absolutely fantastic!” Bofur laughed and re-filled their mugs. “All the things to do with a drunken sailor!”

“It gets even better!” Sandra turned to him as they started on the next verse. “Put him in a bed with the captain’s daughter, put him in a bed with the captain’s daughter, put him in a bed with the captain’s daughter early in the morning!”

This verse was applauded by the dwarves and they noticed that even the locals were now paying them attention – maybe because many of them were good fishers and sailors. “Way hey and up she rises, way hey and up she rises, way hey and up she rises early in the morning!”

They sang all the verses of it, the dwarves laughed and some of them even sang with on the refrains, and it ended up with them repeating the song several times. It was no doubt that getting a proper meal and something good to drink made the mood way better.

…

“Tell me.” Rita said after a while. “That man over there… Is he wearing anything else than a tanga?”

“Wow.” Bombur said as he noticed the man as well.

“That’s not something we see every day.” Nori lifted his eyebrows as the man stumbled across the floor with two mugs of beer. He handed one of them to another guy, a heavy built and muscular man with a red cape and long, blonde hair. He downed the beer in one large gulp for then crashing the mug to the floor, roaring “ANOTHER!” while the friend with the tanga walked on.

“Nice ass.” Wilhelmina said and looked slightly disgusted.

“I’m more curious about this; has he put a pair of socks in it, or does he have a horse cock in there?” Sandra said and took the pipe out of her mouth.

“So that’s what you’re checking out…” Fili turned to her.

“I have an eye for details. Besides, is it made of bearskin?” She narrowed her eyes.

“It actually is.” Wilhelmina frowned. “Oh god my eyes.”

“The people of Laketown have a free mind indeed. Wonder if the gals…” Bofur grinned, immediately earning a big grin from Kili who nodded and handed him more beer.

“One way to find out!” Rita laughed, seeing Kili’s dreamy face.

“There’s only one thing wrong about that.” Fili said and sighed. “It’s like getting a gift only wrapped with pretty bows and no paper.”

“You’re picky.” Bofur frowned. “Don’t tell me you’d left the room if you found that she was only wearing that bear skin… thong…”

“Most likely not.” Fili shrugged his shoulders and downed the rest of his beer.

“See that, the lad finally got some sense!” Bofur smiled and refilled Fili’s mug.

…

Sandra sat down by the table, dizzy after the dance and grabbed another mug of beer, thirsty by the moist and warm air in the room. She downed it all in one gulp and leant back against the wall, closing her eyes; she truly enjoyed this pub. And it was so close to the Master's house, it would only take them a minute to get back.

“Last time I saw a woman drink like that, she passed out.” A familiar deep voice chuckled.

She turned and looked at Thorin. “Then I guess she wasn’t of the ancient blood of the vikings.”

“Vikings?” Thorin lifted his eyebrows in amusement and with something resembling a smile.

“Sorry, I forgot…” she sighed before she turned to him with a smile. “They’re my ancestors – fierce warriors, known for their battle skills, their quick ships and raids for treasures, and trading too. They knew how to drink their beer, including the women, who often were as skilled as men in drinking.”

“So that’s where you got it from.” Thorin smiled and handed her another mug of beer.

“Yep! Also, back home I brew my own beer. So…” she smiled and lifted up the mug and looked at him with a challenging face. “I’d like to see you do that.” He smiled and grabbed his beer and Sandra prepared herself.

“Bottoms up…” he smirked to her and with a last look, they both downed their beers. The other dwarves noticed and started encouraging them, shouting and slamming fists to the table and tramping their feet. Rita and Wilhelmina stood there with a glass of wine each, worrying if this was another of Sandra’s less brilliant ideas; drinking games with a dwarf that happened to be at least 150 years old and during his life had enough time to learn how to down his beer without passing out, it wasn't a fair game.

Wilhelmina and Rita sat by the next table and watched them. “Don’t worry; remember when she drank Ken under the table? They were drinking whisky.” Rita whispered to Wilhelmina.

“And as she realized she had won, she ran around the room, for then hitting on Liam. You know that she doesn’t get drunk, she gets horny.” Wilhelmina whispered back. “You see what I mean?”

“That this will end up with her dragging Thorin to our room?” Rita looked at Wilhelmina who nodded. “Hell, we need to get her key so we don’t have to sleep out here tonight…” Rita looked desperately around. “I do not want to 1. Hear them fucking 2. See them fucking 3. See more than necessary of their bodies 4. Stay awake because of these.”

“I agree. Though, we will see a lot of fun before it comes to that point, I think. And who knows, maybe he rejects her when drunk. Or she passes out for the first time.” Wilhelmina said as she saw Bofur coming in their direction with more beer. “I wonder how it can be that she has never got that far with a guy before…”

“As you pointed out: she doesn’t get drunk. Maybe there’s a tiny piece of sanity left.” Rita shrugged her shoulders. “Though, the main question is if any of us are sane at all.”

“Bottoms up…” Wilhelmina said with lifted eyebrows.

Then both Thorin and Sandra slammed their mugs to the table and the company broke out in ovation, followed by many of the locals as well. “Now that should be respected.” Thorin laughed and patted her back.

“The lass knows how to hold her drinks!” Bofur laughed and handed them new mugs of beer. “Sure you’re not going to throw up? Do I have to get a bucket?”

“Get me a beer!”

“Ye heard what the lass said!”

“This night can become very entertaining.” Wilhelmina said and turned to Rita, raising her glass.

“Indeed. Cheers!”

…

Rita stumbled over to the bar, wanting to try the famous mead she had heard so many speaking so warmly of. She quickly got it, took a sip and her eyes grew wide as the heavenly liquid touched her tongue – it was famous for a reason. Her smile was wide as she turned to walk back to the company but crashed into something. “Oh I’m sorry- you’re a dwarf!” she smiled as she saw the man in front of her – as tall as her, dark red hair, almost brown, and hazel eyes looking at her with surprise. His beard was short, and he had only a braid on each side by the angle of his jaw and two in the hair like Thorin and Fili. On the other hand, his hair was loosely collected in a pony tail by his neck, and did she spot another braid there as well? Indeed he was stylish even though it didn’t look so by the first glance. She liked it.

“Uhm, no. I’m a man.” He smiled politely, his eyes flickering to both sides before he looked at her again with a smile.

“Of course I see you’re a male, but a dwarfish one, and tall as well! You’re as tall as me, and by that taller than Thorin!” she smiled and pointed back to the corner where Thorin sat, with a big grin as he was having a conversation with Sandra who sat beside him, her legs on his lap and babbling about her cat, while Thorin’s eyes seemed to rest somewhere below her chin as she had opened her shirt more and more for each dance she had and by now there was a good view down her cleavage – obviously Thorin liked what he saw. And Rita couldn't help but thinking it was a part of Sandra's plan.

“Oh, the one enjoying the lass?” the man said with a smile.

“Uhm yes. She’s my best friend!” Rita smiled. “She fancies him.”

“I can see that.” He said and laughed as he took a sip of beer; was it just him, or was Rita wearing a man’s clothes? She was wearing trousers, boots, a shirt that was by now very open and revealed a cleavage, and a vest that was open as well. With other words, he guessed she wasn’t from around here – the only places he had seen women wearing men’s clothes were dwarves and she was definitely not a dwarf.

Rita looked him up and down and her face broke out in a big smirk. “You’re hot. Can we fuck?”

The man almost spit his beer and looked at her – well he had hoped for some company and she was gorgeous and everything, but her condition seemed to be more affected than what would be clever to bring to his room, and he didn’t feel like taking advantage of her. “Nnnot tonight. Maybe someday when you’re not that drunk.” He smiled politely.

“If I stop drinking then?”

“Come back in a few hours then, I'm sure we could agree on something then.” he said and felt his cheeks burn and hurried away.

…

The stranger eventually found himself a seat by the bar and sat there and enjoyed beer after beer, his mood getting better and better and forgetting his promise to himself about just one beer. He realized that trying to hide who he was would be difficult with a bunch of other dwarves as well, but now it was done. At least he could have a good time, and hopefully this attention around the dwarves would lead him to some well-paid work.

He turned his head as he heard a soft and merry voice beside him, and saw it was the girl he had spotted with the leader Thorin. She was tall but graceful, but something about her didn’t quite fit in; dressed just like the other girl. And they had something in common with their hair style – short and somehow unnatural, but their faces were all natural and with smiling lips and shiny blue eyes. He looked this girl up and down as she stood and waited to order her drinks.

“So, you’re familiar with Thorin, I see.” He said to start a conversation.

She turned and looked surprised at him. “That’s right, I’m travelling with his company.” She smiled to him. “You happen to know him?”

“No, but I met a friend of yours. Happy brunette with mead.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Ah, you met Rita then I guess.” She smiled to him. “What’s your name?”

“Bavor.” He said and took a sip of beer.

“Sounds dwarfish.” She said and looked him up and down, seeing he couldn’t be tall. “You’re a dwarf?”

“No, man.” He said and blushed.

“Don’t lie. I’ve been living with dwarves 24/7 the last months, I recognize a dwarf.” She said and Bavor rolled his eyes. “Though we don’t have to speak loud about it?”

“That would be much appreciated.” He said and looked back at her. “Your name?”

“Sandra.” She smiled to him, finding him quite charming and easy on the eyes.

“Special name, you’re not from around here?” he was now sure she was not from these areas.

“That is a LONG story…” Sandra sighed and then started to tell about how she got there with a slight twist and that she met the dwarves, but not telling about their quest. Soon she had gotten her two beers, but she ended up chatting a lot with this Bavor.

Then she felt a hand on her waist and a soft baritone voice spoke. “I see you’re having a good time, but I need some help getting Kili up from the floor…” Thorin said with a warm voice and grabbed the other beer, but sending a nasty look in Bavor’s direction.

“Thorin!” Sandra said as she noticed. 

“Sorry, I have no idea what you’re speaking of.” Thorin said and turned her around, looking over his shoulder to see Bavor lifting his eyebrows and downing his beer.

“Don’t worry Thorin, I wouldn’t be so stupid that I tried to hook up the girl you rest your eyes on.” Bavor shrugged his shoulders and Thorin stopped in his tracks. Sandra rolled her eyes – why did men have to be so primitive – she had hoped dwarves were a bit better than the men of her race, but it seemed like she was wrong.

“Be careful, young dwarf.” Thorin turned and glared at Bavor.

“I am, it’s just you that happens to be over-protective. You don’t have to, by just looking her in her eyes I can see she’s the most loyal female you could find, you should trust her.” Bavor said and looked at Thorin with one lifted eyebrow.

“I’m more worried what other men could do to her.” Thorin said shortly and sent Bavor a last poisonous look.

“Thorin, he’s right. Calm down and have a beer.” Sandra smiled to him as they walked away. She looked over her shoulder and formed the word sorry on her lips.

Bavor saw it and smiled, and thought to himself that if this was their leader and the famous Thorin Oakenshield, he would never go to Erebor – he was sure his beer tasted sour by that look.

…

“There he is, AGAIN!” Wilhelmina sighed as the man in the bear skin thong showed up again.

“I don’t think he has any other clothes” Bombur said and turned to Wilhelmina. “Should we offer him some?”

“It’s tempting. This is the fourth time he has shown up!” Fili lifted his eyebrows at the sight.

“Oh no he’s coming over to us!” Bombur whispered and quickly turned to face the others.

“Hey ther’ gentlemens!” the man said and smiled to them. “I jusht wondered… If you haff sheen my wife?”

“Why so, Thongy? Stolen her underwear?” Fili smirked, earning a slap on the back of his head from Bofur.

“Thongy?” the man asked confused.

“He’s thinking of your lack of clothes and choice of only cloth on your body.” Wilhelmina said politely.

“Oh that. My lucky pantsh.” ‘Thongy’ said and shrugged his shoulders. “It hash already earned me some penniesh!” he smiled and fished up some silver coins from inside the thong, immediately making them all stare at his hand in shock. “I can dance!” he smiled and wriggled his hips, which caused him to lose balance for a moment before he leant over Bofur, who was closest and rubbing himself against his arm, leaving the poor toymaker putting on his best pokerface.

“No, not needed! We fix that ourself!” Bombur smiled and ‘Thongy’ sighed in disappointment, mumbling something about rude and stubborn dwarves and headed off.

“We won’t buy anything here unless we have the exact amount of coins, ok?!” Bofur hissed and refilled his cup with a clear liquid.

“Sure that’s clever?” Bombur asked and looked at his brother as he had filled half the mug with the liquid, which Wilhelmina guessed was strong stuff, according to the smell. “You know how you are after drinking strong spirits…”

“I’ll need that after this. I could feel everything, not only the coins.” Bofur mumbled and downed it all.

“This can be funny.” Fili smirked as Bofur shut his eyes closed, and without a word telling how terrible that tasted while Wilhelmina facepalmed. She got a feeling she would be the babysitter tonight.


	11. Between the Sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hats, sex, ridiculous humour and a new character that might reveal that Gandalf made not only a port key, but a f*cking portal into Middle Earth.
> 
> Recommended music for this chapter: Joe Cocker: You Can Leave Your Hat On *dara-ta-ta-ta-daa, dara-ta-ta-ta-daaaah*  
> I'll be so kind that I post the link here, actually! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbqpG5fYai4 Oooooh yeeeeaaaah show me now you kinky dwarves!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be posted more than two weeks ago, then network troubles happened, and as I was going to post it a week ago, I discovered some major shit I had fucked up and had to correct. This is highly embarrassing, so I hope that the smut I've written for you guys makes up for the waiting :'D
> 
> I'm never going to say "I'll post it during this week", I'll just jinx myself by doing that.

“Eeeey, the iPod!” Sandra squealed and snapped it out from Rita’s hands.

“I see where this will be going…” Rita lifted one eyebrow when seeing Sandra browsing through the playlists, obviously searching for something she knew was there. She had seen it before and she knew what was coming.

Sandra turned on the speakers and put them on max and started the song she had picked out. The voice of Joe Cocker filled the room, and confirmed the theory that music was a language where no translations where needed as a few men here and there jumped up on the tables.

But her eyes widened as the stranger she had met was among them – and now he seemed to be slightly affected by alcohol as well. “That man… dwarf… you know him?” Sandra asked as she saw Rita’s face.

“I spoke a little with him, but I didn’t get his name.” Rita shrugged her shoulders, not able to take her eyes off from him as his cloak dropped to the floor.

“Bavor, I think it was.” Sandra said and lifted one eyebrow as she admired his hips’ moves. He knew how to move and she licked her lips slightly.

“Quite sexy name.” Rita smirked as he opened his jacket. She wondered what those hips moves would feel like between her legs.

Wilhelmina joined them as she had realized Bofur was not going to be held back that night and looked for the safety among her sisters in soul. “Bavor? Wouldn’t mind saying that name out loud.” She said with a smile as he ripped off his jacket, swung it above his head before tossing it above the crowd, earning a few squeals and giggles from a few women.

“Oh I wouldn’t mind either.” Sandra said with a silly smile, and Thorin let out a silent yet irritated sigh from beside her. “Oh, don’t get overprotective now, I’m a free soul with no filter when it comes to what I say.” She smiled to him.

“I’m not overprotective, I just don’t trust the stranger!” he said to his defence, but the white knuckles revealed how tightly he was holding his beer mug.

“Are you jealous??” Sandra plumped out, revealing that alcohol had also washed away her careful-filter.

“Jealous? At that youngster??”

“You really shouldn't be – I prefer my wine matured, and I also eat my dinner at home, even when I like to look at the menu other places. I call it inspiration.” Sandra said with her most charming smile and let a hand caress Thorin's bearded cheek.

“Well, ok.” Thorin said and actually smiled a bit.

“She's sly. She knows how to maneuver around his stubbornness.” Rita whispered to Wilhelmina, who snorted into her cup of wine.

In the next moment a familiar dwarf jumped up on the table and all their jaws dropped as Bofur got his jacket off and smacked the stranger’s butt with it, and he answered with a teasing smile. “I knew I should have been babysitting him…” Wilhelmina buried her face in her hands.

Sandra said nothing, but put the song on repeat. This was too good. She had never expected Bofur to show off such sweet moves and Thorin rolled his eyes.

Soon the two dwarves had gotten their shirts off, revealing fit and well trained torsos that made every woman watching squeal in joy and encouraging them to continue. Even the three gals had to whistle and encouraging them, the rest of the company either chuckling or putting on their best poker face as to keep a certain standard. Thorin looked like he hoped nobody knew he was the crazy toymaker’s leader. He wanted to leave the room, but he didn't want to be called a sissy either.

Then the two dwarves got their boots and socks off, and Wilhelmina couldn’t resist the urge to say something. “I don’t know if I want to see this or not.”

“I want to. DAT ASS!” Rita smirked, her eyes fixed on Bavor’s butt.

“I don’t mind either, this is something I want to save on my memory, so when I become an old lady, I can tell my grandchildren about this moment and make them ashamed.” Sandra smirked and lit Thorin’s pipe and inhaled the smoke.

“Still smoking, are you?” Wilhelmina looked at Sandra, who shrugged her shoulders.

“Would you reall tell your grandchildren about that?” Thorin asked with lifted eyebrows, obviously shocked.

“My grand-mother always told me about how sexy Sean Connery was in his younger days, and how he made her dream of men. She visited a gallery in Edinburgh just to see art students' sketches of him naked, when he was young and poor. Before he became a famous actor.” Sandra shrugged her shoulders. “I both love and hate those stories.”

“I can see that. My grandfather never told me about his... ideas...” Thorin mumbled; the thought of grandmother's having fantasies was terrifying.

“She also had _the_ talk with me.”

“Your grandmother was a lively woman.”

Then Bofur ripped his pants off, standing there in the boxer and looking at Bavor with a challenging smirk. “Now lad, where is your courage?”

“I’ll show you.” Bavor smirked back and as he slowly wriggled his pants off, Bofur danced ever so seductively and soon he was companied by Bavor in his boxer only.

“Wow. Just… Wow.” Thorin suddenly said, his eyebrows lifted so high they almost blended with his hair.

“I know.” Sandra said and patted his shoulder. “I want to grab those asses as well…”

“That is the tightest pair off asses I’ve seen in a long while.” Rita whispered.

Wilhelmina sat there and said nothing, but with a silly smile on her lips. In the next moment Fili crashed down beside her, trying to get contact by fanning a hand in front of her, but no response.

They had believed the two dancers would stop there, but in the next moment Bavor ripped off his boxer as well and now the women standing around the table was screaming in joy, while our three girls stared in expectation – what would Bofur do now.

Bofur looked at Bavor, with his hands on his hips before he laughed and got his own off as well, elegantly tipping it off with his foot and throwing it away from the table. Now Thorin hid his eyes with one hand and shook his head slightly, trying to hold back his laughter the best he could, while our three girls now applauded loudly. Fili looked at the scene and then at his uncle. “You said Kili was drunk…?”

“Just an excuse of getting her away from that.” Thorin whispered as to not break out in laughter as the two dwarves now stood on the table, still dancing naked, Bofur only wearing his hat while they sang with the full power of their lungs ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’.

“They did fine without her, don’t worry.” Kili said as he joined them. “I was standing at front row, I got to say that Bofur has a hidden talent.”

“Maybe we should get them down?” Sandra suggested. “Just so he doesn’t get raped, some of the men over there looks a bit too interested.” In the next moment, Bofur’s hat landed on Sandra’s lap, and she immediately screamed and put the hat on her head. “OH MY GODS I GOT THE HAT!”

“WHOAH where did that come from?!” Kili shouted as her reaction caught him off-guard.

“She… has a thing about hats…” Rita said and rolled her eyes. Sandra rolled around on the bench, holding the hat tightly and laughing, and Thorin looked at her with one lifted eyebrow before he looked at Rita. “She has a collection of these hats at home, I bet she’s been missing them.”

“I can see that.” Thorin said and pulled her up. “Behave a little, woman. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not loco either.” Sandra turned to him with a big smile and her eyes were big and filled with tears. “Forget it…” he mumbled and took a large sip of mead.

“Sandra, have you put the song on repeat?” Wilhelmina asked as she looked on the iPod.

“I don’t know what you’re speaking about.” She said with a silly smile, falling back on the bench while caressing the hat.

*

“Sandra, would you come here?” Thorin whispered as they stood by a door.

“I'm not sure if I should go, Rita has found a tall, pale guy again...” she said low, looking a bit worried.

“I've seen her kill orcs, she'll handle him.” Thorin smiled and took a towards the door.

“Yeah, you're right.” Sandra said with a small smile and followed Thorin. “What's on your mind?” she whispered as they stood outside the pub.

“Come here.” Thorin whispered and gestured her to lean closer to him. She laughed a bit and leant down with a smile, and a soft sigh left her as his lips covered hers. She could have stood there like this forever, holding him close, if it wasn't for the crowded pub with loud music and louder people. “The party goes on without us.” Thorin whispered as he broke the kiss.

They hurried over to the Master's house, where the company had been given different rooms. As they got there, she followed him, past the room she was supposed to stay in with the two other girls, down the hall and to the end. There Thorin unlocked the door and they sneaked in, even though it seemed like they were the only ones in the house right now.

Again their lips met in a kiss, but this time far more passionate; she had been waiting for this and her pulse went faster and faster for each of the garments that fell to the floor, and everything in her body was ready for what to come. Well, if it wasn't for the alcohol.

*

Wilhelmina went outside to get some fresh air and sat down on a bench and closed her eyes, smiling as she was very pleased with the night so far – the mood was much better and everyone seemed to enjoy the night. Well, some more than others, it seemed; Thorin and Sandra had disappeared and most likely they were busy satisfying the needs that had been built ever since the start of the journey, and Rita had disappeared with this Bavor dwarf, and a tall, pale guy she didn't know who he was, she only saw him from behind in a dim room with much smoke as they sneaked out.

She flinched as she noticed someone sitting down beside her and she turned to see who it was, and to her surprise, there was something familiar about him, even though he was wearing a coat which hid most of his face; the neck of it reached up to his nose, and the rest of his face was hidden in shadow by the hood. Bangs of brown hair fell over his shoulders. He didn’t turn to look at her, he just spoke. “You came here with the dwarves. Why should three human women come here with thirteen dwarves and a half-fling?” Something was familiar.

“Pardon?” she asked, surprised by the question.

“I saw you arrive, and I’ve observed you in the pub. The dwarves have no tradition of bringing with women, neither for fight nor for joy.”

Wilhelmina looked at her shoes, blushing and happy he hadn’t seen Sandra and Thorin just ten minutes ago, though she felt like telling she carried a sword. “We were lost and met the dwarves, and we followed them here.” She said, knowing that was very much the truth. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Widewanderer.” He said shortly. “So where are you from?” he asked and turned to look at her, and something about him made her nervous; he seemed to know something. “And what are the dwarves doing here? They haven’t been seen around here since the devastation made by Smaug.”

“That is a long story, if I were to tell you where I’m from, I think you shall just stay to lost strangers. And what the dwarves are doing here, I don’t know. They won’t tell us anything about their journey anyways.” She shrugged her shoulders and leant back against the wall, hoping she looked confident.

“Have you heard the songs? That better days will come when the people of Erebor returns and the dragon will die? They always interpret the songs wrong, though.” he moved closer to her so he looked straight down on her face, staring into her eyes. “They are going to reclaim Erebor, to kill the dragon. Your leader happens to be Thorin Oakenshield, grandchild of the last King under the Mountain. Do you know anything that can prove the songs one way or another?”

Wilhelmina thought as hard as she had never done before – she had no idea if he was friendly or not, but she knew that killing the dragon would take a lot. Maybe she could give him implied facts… “I know nothing of this, but if there’s a dragon that has to be killed…” she said nervously, hoping it convinced him. “Dragons get thick skin by resting on treasures, right? Maybe there will be a weak spot where the gold hasn’t got the chance to attach?” Widewanderer nodded his head. “Wouldn’t that be a good spot to shoot?”

“Indeed.” Widewanderer said and leant back again. “But you know nothing? Will you stay here in Laketown, or follow them?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders, shivering a little in the cold.

Widewanderer got up from the bench and looked thoughtfully across the lake and at the peak in the distance, lit up by the moonlight. He turned to her and was about to say something as someone coughed from the door. He turned and looked at Fili, who looked at Widewanderer and then Wilhelmina. “I just wanted to see if Wilhelmina was alright.”

“Yes, I’m fine, I was about to go back inside.” She smiled to Fili.

“Good night.” Widewanderer said to her before he looked shortly at Fili and turned to leave.

“Who was that?” Fili said and walked over to the bench and sat down beside her.

“I don’t know but his name was Widewanderer. He was asking about our quest, but I gave him nothing. The oddest ranger I've ever seen.” She said and knew she was more or less telling the truth, just not telling the part about the hint she gave him, hoping it would save lives.

“I thought so; they’re not used to dwarves around here anymore.” he sighed and looked at Wilhelmina. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, thank you.” She said and smiled to him, glad to see that even though he’d had his pints of beer, he was still the responsible and caring young dwarf.

She turned to look across the lake, shivering a little again, but flinching as she suddenly felt something warm around her shoulders – she looked at them and saw that Fili had taken off his fur cape and laid it around her shoulders. “You looked cold.” He said as he saw her surprised face.

“Thank you.” She smiled to him and he looked the lake with her, both sitting there in silence before she broke it. “Do you think you will settle down in Erebor, if we get rid of Smaug and Thorin becomes King?”

“I think so – would be something, to rebuild a kingdom. To build my own home.” Fili said thoughtful.

“I’m glad to hear that – I think Thorin will appreciate it.” She said and Fili looked at her, his eyebrows slightly lifted. “He’s very fond of you and Kili, everyone can see that he looks upon you like you were his sons, not his nephews. He would be glad if you two stayed in Erebor with him.”

“That is true.” he said and smiled. “You then?”

“I don’t know – there are so many places in Middle Earth I’d like to see and I have no idea where to settle down if I can’t get back home. Time will see.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“What would make you settle down somewhere?” Fili asked her and she looked at him again.

“Maybe a place allowing me to be who I am, where I can do the things I’d like to, someone to care for. Many things, I just have to find them first.” She said and looked down.

Her heart skipped a beat as she felt a hand under her chin and lifting her face up again, and Fili’s blue eyes met her brown ones. “What if someone cared for you then?” he asked and suddenly she couldn’t take her eyes away from his. She didn’t find the words, but her reaction was enough; Fili carefully leant in to kiss her, and as their lips met, they closed their eyes and she couldn’t help but laying a hand on his neck and pulled him closer. He cupped her cheek with one hand while the other rested on her waist, holding her close to him as he deepened the kiss.

“Fili, would you- oh never mind.” A deep voice said and they immediately broke the kiss.

“What, Dwalin?!” Fili sighed and rolled his eyes as he saw the mocking smirk on Dwalin’s face as he was headed back inside.

“Your brother is drunk as well, I hoped you could talk some sense to him, but I see you have more _pressing_ issues going on!” Dwalin snickered and closed the door after him.

“He’s right.” Fili smiled and leaned in to Wilhelmina again.

But she laid a hand on his chest. “We should help Kili first.”

“Then…?” he asked and lifted one eyebrow.

“Then we go back to the pressing issues.” Wilhelmina smiled, and as Fili took her hand and led her inside to assist Kili, she knew Sandra wasn’t the only one, and a smirk curled on her lips – if they knew that the innocent Wilhelmina wasn’t innocent at all…

*

Sandra woke up with her tongue glued to the palate and she immediately started to search for water. She spotted the mug on the bedside table and downed half of it even without thinking about where the water came from. She sighed and dropped back on the bed and immediately realized that something was not as she expected – there was something warm and hairy beside her. She carefully turned and realized she had used half of Thorin's hair as a pillow. He seemed to be still asleep, and she carefully collected his hair and stuffed it above his head before she looked down on him; he seemed to be so peaceful, and for the first time during the months she had known him, he looked relaxed.

She caressed his cheek and snuggled closer to him and her heart skipped a beat as his arm tightened around her and pulled her closer. Sandra couldn't help but smile, even though she was pretty sure nothing happened last night; too much alcohol and too little sleep had made her cancel everything within a moment. A shame, but she hoped there still was a chance of success. After all, she knew in her heart that she was ready, and even though she feared to admit it, even to herself, she loved him and she knew he felt the same way. She smiled as she knew he had been a gentleman and instead of either leaving her alone or taking advantage of her, he had carried her to the bed and went to sleep by her side. That was more than she could say about the other guys she had tried her luck with; they had become upset and angered.

She must had fallen asleep again, as she woke up again by Thorin shifting beside her as he rolled over on his back. Sandra opened her eyes and saw that he was looking down on her with a warm smile as he caressed her hair, which was a change since usually it was her looking down on him – but she liked this new view. “Slept well?” he asked her softly.

“Better than in a long time.” she smiled and snuggled closer to him.

“Good. I was worried since you more or less passed out.” he chuckled.

“Too much good food and drink after starving for weeks – I should have predicted it.” Sandra said and laughed a bit. “I hope I didn't disappoint you.”

“You didn't. I guess I wouldn't have been especially impressive myself last night, considering the amount of drinks.” Thorin smiled.

“Maybe just as well that nothing more happened last night.” Sandra said and shrugged her shoulders.

“We have another chance.” Thorin said low and let his hand trace down from her hair, over her shoulders and down to her waist. “If you haven't changed your mind.”

“I haven't.” Sandra grinned and stretched up to kiss him. He embraced her as she rolled over to sit above him, and the sensation of his furry chest tickling her bare breasts made her short of breath while his hands searched down her back and sneaked under her panties. She rolled her hips to tease him and she could already feel the growing bulge against her.

Thorin pushed down the panties and Sandra was quick to get them off so the both of them were naked; the moment before she sat back on top of him she looked down over his body and she couldn't help but feel amazed by the sight. He was heavier built than a human, but his body was fit and powerful, and his torso was covered with soft, dark hair. As she swung her leg over him again to continue their game, she placed both of her hands on his chest and enjoyed the feeling of the fur tickling her palms and she bit down on her lip with a naughty smile as she saw how he enjoyed the touch. Thorin looked at her with a playful smile she had never seen on his face before as he sneaked a hand down between her legs and Sandra couldn't stop a moan as his fingers finally found their way to her most sensitive spot again.

She had no idea if it had been only seconds or minutes, but she was caught by surprise as Thorin stoppe dhis little game to grab her buttocks. “Come closer.” he said low with a voice darkened by lust. She did and at the same time he moved further down and she groaned with pleasure as his tongue slipped in between her folds. Soon he had found the rhythm and the pressure that made Sandra see stars and she had to rest a hand against the headboard to keep up above him while her other hand played with his hair. The sensation of a finger made her fight to remain silent, and soon a second one joined – it was unpleasant for only a short second before her focus was back on the pleasure he was giving her.

Sandra started to whisper his name over and over again as she got closer to climax. She looked down at him for a moment and their eyes met – that was enough to send her over the edge. The feeling was more than anything she had experienced on her own and she gasped for air as the sensation left her warm, hot and shocked by the intensity.

She carefully moved back again so she could lean down to kiss Thorin – the taste of herself on his lips and tongue turned her more on than she expected and as she broke the kiss she moved down on him. She placed kisses and licks along her way and enjoyed the taste and scent of his skin. Her hands teased him as well and as she reached his cock, she looked up on him as she took it in her mouth and took in a little before sliding up again. She repeated this many times, sliding a bit longer down for each time until she could take in almost all of it. The sounds he made helped her to find the right pressure and pace, and she enjoyed to see the pleasure she was bringing him.

“Sandra, stop.” he hissed – she had no idea for how long it had lasted, but obviously enough to almost bring him there. She sat up and smiled innocently to him. “Oh don't even pretend that it wasn't your purpose.” he chuckled as she moved up to kiss him again.

He grabbed her buttocks and positioned her above him again and put a gentle pressure on her hips and she obeyed his will without even thinking – it felt just right. Now there was no Beorn to disturb them and this time, it happened. As his first inches slid inside she gasped in surprise; by how it actually felt, and how good it felt. It wasn't until she was halfway she felt the first stings of pain.

“Don't stress” Thorin whispered and she leant closer to him to rest her forehead against the pillow and she laughed a bit. “Don't think, just act.” he whispered in her ear and kissed her neck. His hands wandered over her body again; he started to learn where she liked to be touched and how, and he used it now to avoid her getting nervous, and it worked. She decided to take the rest in one move.

“Damn!” she hissed at the sharp sting of pain.

“Mahal!” Thorin growled at the sweet sensation.

He placed soft kisses on her neck to soothe her as he picked up a calm pace to take her mind over to the sweet pleasure of the act and it brought her back on track. He slowly turned up the pace and she followed him and their lips met again – she moaned as he with a thrust hit a sensitive spot and Thorin made sure to keep hitting it. One of his hands cupped one of her breasts and kneaded it and the sensation sent sparks out of every one of Sandra's nerves. She sat up straight and Thorin followed and allowed himself to focus on the breasts for a little while – he loved them, this lovely pair of femininity. Sandra seemed to be in control of the ride now anyways.

He was taken by surprise as she rolled over and pulled him with her. “You-”

“curious girl?” she finished the sentence for him as she laid on her back with him between her legs.

“Something like that.” he said with lifted eyebrows and a surprised smile, with locks of his hair glued to his forehead. He kissed her again and picked up the pace.

Soon Sandra was getting closer again, and it quickened as Thorin sat back and put her legs on his shoulders and kept hitting that spot. Sandra was surprised that the first time felt so good; her friends had been moaning about how horrible it was, that they ached and bled like they had been attacked, and only a few said that they hardly felt anything painful. She would say it was heavenly – she had hoped for one orgasm, but now she found herself quickly approaching the second.

She tried to hold back, she was afraid she would be too tired long before Thorin was, but she soon knew she couldn't. As if he had read her mind, he sneaked a hand down to push her over the edge, all the time with a small smile curled on his lips while sweat trickled down his forehead.

“Damn you, Thorin” Sandra groaned as she came again; his moves and how she met them, how perfectly he fit in her, it was too much. She gave in and moaned loudly and gave a damn about any neighbours – probably they were still sleeping anyways.

“Sandra, I’m coming…!” he whispered and his grip around her legs tightened as he pushed his face between them, his eyes squeezed shut and his face pulled in a wonderful expression as he reached his climax. His hips bucked as the waves of the orgasm rolled over him, before it was all over – he let her legs drop and sat back, catching his breath. “I hope you’re satisfied.” He whispered and looked her up and down, a pleased smile on his face.

“I really am, thank you…” she whispered as she sat up and kissed him. Her body was still sensitive after her climax and she had never thought of how soft his lips were. As he laid down beside her, the kiss deepened before he finished it so he could embrace her. “Thorin, you really made it worth to be remembered.” Sandra whispered.

“I feel honoured.” he smiled and kissed her forehead.

“I love you, Thorin.” she whispered to him, with the heartiest smile he had seen on her face.

“And I love you too, Sandra.” Thorin whispered back.

It didn't take long time before a second round followed. All the time Sandra felt like he did his best to please her, to make her feel safe and that it was a good experience to her – and he didn’t fail. As he finished after her second orgasm, she curled up in his arms, not believing how good she felt right now.

Thorin reached out for his pipe on the bedside table. Soon they were enjoying it, letting the calm and peaceful feeling settle in them. “Though I have to say – you impress me.”

“Thank you!” Sandra smiled and made a ring of smoke as she handed him the pipe. “Damn, this habit is going to kill me.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not like the tobacco men like to smoke. It’s for a reason they don’t grow as old as dwarves.” Thorin chuckled before he inhaled more smoke and handed the pipe back to her.

“If I haven’t calculated all wrong, we should age together, so…” Sandra said and shrugged her shoulders. “Damn, I feel like having another round.”

“Are you serious? We just had the second round!” Thorin looked at her with shock, and as she smiled back with her naughtiest smiles, he sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’m not young anymore…”

“Well, you do have some skilled fingers. And a tongue.” Sandra put up her sweetest smile.

Thorin just looked at her for a moment. “You do have a point.”

“I know.” Sandra smirked and had her will.

…

“Sandra, this has been absolutely fantastic, but I can hardly breathe.” Thorin whispered as he collapsed on top of her, his face delicately placed between her breasts.

“You have a awoken a monster...” Sandra whispered back and caressed his hair. “I'm so sorry.”

“Don't be... It's just too long since last time.” Thorin said and chuckled a bit.

“And you're a royal. I thought royals got laid all the time.”

“I'm peckish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I could also need a beta reader. New computer and new software, and with NO autocorrect that WORKS. And since English isn't my first language, I would be very happy if someone would beta read my fic(s) :3 I'm thinking about this cracked one, and the more serious one "of Journeys and Jewels". So comment if you're interested, and we'll have a talk :D


	12. Kings Just Wanna Have Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's keep the party going! TW: extremely poorly made jokes and situations about drugs. A bad habit my drug speciality education has given me.
> 
> I sort of feel sorry for Thorin though...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for my long absence. Real life was fucking up everything and I've been too busy fixing things too have the energy to write more. I think things have calmed down now, so hopefully I can get back to both stories now! Oh and uhm... from now there will be a lot of joking about with cross-universe references. You are hereby warned.  
> The chapter is extra long. I hope you're okay with that <3
> 
> And thanks a lot to WytchDr for being my beta <3 and I figured out some of the weird parts in which the documents messed up! *epic music*

Wilhelmina couldn't help but smile wide as she sat down by the breakfast table that was sat out for them. It had felt fantastic to wake up in Fili's arms after a night of passion. It was perfect as he kissed her after wishing her good morning, all until they were disturbed by Kili puking on the floor beside them. They got up and left the room then, but Wilhelmina wouldn't let the interruption of Kili's hangover ruin the mood – Fili loved her, that was all that mattered.

Very few of the dwarves were to be found; Bombur, Oin, Gloin, Balin, Ori and Dori had made their way to the breakfast table, though Ori seemed like he could throw up any moment.

“Relax, that's how it feels when you've had too much!” Dori said encouragingly.

“If that's how I'm going to feel after drinking, I'm never doing it again...” Ori said with a mere whisper.

After some time, Rita showed up, and her smile was beyond what you could say confident and satisfied. She sat down by the table and grabbed some slices of bread and added a fair amount of jam on all of them and began to eat while her tea was brewing.

“So, why do you seem so happy?” Wilhelmina asked and tried to not laugh by Rita's extremely pleased face.

“Oh, we can talk about that later. And I bet Sandra would like to hear too.” Rita grinned. “Where is she?”

“Haven't seen her since she sneaked away with Thorin last night.” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

“Which means, we won't see her the next several days as they will be busy satisfying the needs they have built up for at least two months?” Rita snickered.

“Something like that.”

“You seem very happy too...” Rita looked at her with a suspicious look. “Is that a bite mark on your neck?”

“Mmmmmight be.” Wilhelmina blushed.

“Kinky.”

...

“Well, nobody has slept in our room tonight.” Wilhelmina sighed as they found their bedroom just the way it was yesterday.

“Which means she should be in Thorin's room then. Do you know where it is?” Rita asked curiously.

“I guess we should just check the doors then.” Wilhelmina said and started to walk down the hall.

They barely opened the doors and guessed who it was by the hair and the beard and quickly left, and they were approaching what had to be Thorin's room.

“Wilhelmina, wait that's” Rita started, but too late.

In what Wilhelmina recognized as the walkin wardrobe of the Master, she found the dwarf Bavor and Loki naked on some cloaks, in deep sleep.

“Now tell me...” Wilhelmina turned to Rita. “Does the satisfied look on your face come from a wild threesome with Bavor and LOKI?!”

“It was pure magic, I can say that...” Rita whispered and blushed, a small and naughty smile on her red face.

“I'm not shocked.” Wilhelmina said and closed the door. “I just didn't need to see their dicks.”

“Sorry about that.”

“You're right. Sandra want to hear about that.”

They kept on down the hall, and they were about to open another door as they heard familiar voices from the inside.

“...you little stoat!” Thorin half growled, half laughed – in general, that kind of laughter that is creepy if you're not the one causing it.

“What does that make you then? My little weasel?” Sandra giggled, while some suspicious noises followed.

Sandra and Wilhelmina stared at each other – it was almost midday! Everyone else were either up and going or hungover and sleeping, but these two were obviously not done with what they had started.

“Wilhelmina, I feel like a perv when I'm standing right here...” Rita whispered.

“Me too!” Wilhelmina said and leaned closer to the keyhole to listen better. “What kind of engine is there inside them to keep going all night and morning...”

“Oh, just like that!” Sandra moaned, followed by a pleased laugh.

“Again? You're greedy... I like that...” Thorin growled. This was followed with what had to be a smack on a butt and Sandra's squeal of joy.

“Over and over, until your arms weaken...” Sandra said low and growling before there came a squeal, followed by a moan.

“Was that a _Star Trek_ quote??” Wilhelmina stared at Rita, who looked like she was fighting to not laugh out loud. She just nodded. “I've heard enough.” she turned and walked down the hall.

Rita hesitated a moment before she followed. “It could be fun to just burst in. Imagine their faces!”

“No, I have no intention of seeing our dear friend exposed with Thorin between her legs.” Wilhelmina smiled politely.

“Or behind her. Or she on top of him, his short legs sticking out under her round and jumpy butt.” Rita hissed in surpressed amusement, but WIlhelmina simply looked at her. “You partypooper.” Rita mumbled. “But... from behind, do you really think he reaches up? She's like 1,70 and he's barely 1,50! Wilhelmina?”

“I'm not going to find out!!”

*

“Uhm yeah, that was all I'm going to tell you about my majestic night...” Sandra mumbled and looked down in her beer mug.

“But seriously – you passed out??” Rita grinned and leant over the table.

“YES I did. Now tell me about the mystic night you had! Wilhelmina said that she found what was left of them in a walk-in wardrobe!” Sandra set her eyes in Rita.

“Oh _that_ was magic, I tell you!” Rita grinned and leant back in the chair. “Wilhelmina, do you mind telling her who you found?” she said with a satisfied smile and studied her nails.

Wilhelmina rolled her eyes. “Sleeping naked on some cloaks, I found Bavor and Loki.”

“WHAT?!” Sandra spat out the last mouthful of beer.

“Oh yes! I won't try threesome again, it was enough with this one, wild time with something ascrazy as a curious, hungry dwarf and a kinky, norse trickster.” Rita chuckled and took a sip of her tea before she started on what she dared to deliver of her nightly adventures.

Then she turned to Wilhelmina. “And I understand you and Fili spent the night together?”

“That is right.” Wilhelmina said and blushed.

“Oh tell me all about your royal adventure.” Sandra grinned and laid back against the wall.

“I'm going to try to ignore the fact that you seem to become my love interest's aunt.” Wilhelmina rolled her eyes.

“OH IS IT THAT SERIOUS?!” Rita blurted out with a huge smile.

“Uhm, yeah. Except that I don't know how serious he is.” Wilhelmina sighed. “Kili sort of spoiled things.”

“That little shit.” Sandra mumbled. “But that means, that you have come to the conclusion that you like guys then?”

“I have come to the conclusion that I seem to be bi. Fili seems to be fine with it, though.”

Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

“He should be, after all Bofur told us.” Rita smirked. “Still running after women only...”

“Oh, he told me that he's been with guys too.” Wilhelmina then looked around, leant closer to them and whispered. “Don't tell anybody, but in Rivendell he had an affair with Dwalin...”

“Oh that filthy dwarf!” Rita grinned. “Didn't Bofur say that Dwalin and Thorin had a lot of adventures when they were younger? And we're not speaking of the travelling adventures or warfare!”

“Some things stay in the family...” Sandra chuckled.

“Maybe he wanted to see if Fili was anything like his uncle before he became old and grumpy.”

Wilhelmina lifted an eyebrow to Sandra.

“Hey! If I dare say so, Thorin was quite lively and passionate!” Sandra said with a look that tried to be insulted but she couldn't hide the laugh behind it. “So tell me – do Fili and Thorin have something in common??”

“He points slightly to the right.” Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders before she took a sip of her mead.

“Thorin too.”

“This is a bit creepy...” Rita mumbled and looked over her shoulder to be sure nobody listened.

“And... this long...” Wilhelmina made an approximate guess with her hands.

“Much the same. And this... thick, I guess.” she showed with her fingers and Wilhelmina leaned closer to compare. Rita buried her face in her hands in shame.

“Runs in the family! Dwalin understood this long before us!” Wilhelmina giggled and she and Sandra gave each other a highfive.

“Loki was longer...” Rita mumbled and drank more tea.

“He doesn't count, since he's not native to this universe.” Sandra coughed.

“Yeah, like _we_ are!” Wilhelmina laughed.

“But tell me...” Sandra leant closer to Rita. “Was he completely hairless down there, or is that a fangirl thing??”

“The bush was under control.” Rita lifted her eyebrows.

“Hah! I knew it!!”

*

”Sandra, do you think it’s wise that Thorin is having yet another of that raki-like stuff?” Rita asked worriedly as they saw him and Dwalin having another shot of it. “I mean, it’s like tequila...”

“Well, I don’t want to be the party pooper, but I’m getting worried.” Sandra lifted her eyebrows.

“This can be interesting. We’ve never seen Thorin drunk.” Wilhelmina smirked, resting her chin in her palm.

The minutes went by and nothing unexpected happened; Kili got knocked down by a local woman, Ori got his way with that same woman, Bofur found his clothes after crowd surfing for a while after yet another striptease on the table, Bombur fell asleep and Nori was telling all the dirty jokes.

Then it happened.

“Guys, is that Thorin?” Bombur asked and pointed in the direction of the bar, where Thorin was stealing scarves from the coat stands while Dwalin covered up.

“Oh fuck.” Fili said and facepalmed.

“Are they ever going to grow up?!” Balin mumbled and shook his head. “I thought 140 years of proper behavior was a good sign!”

“You know, deep inside, Dwalin is still a naughty kid. And Thorin, who was denied to be that, are using every chance to be that kid.” Oin said wisely.

“Do you know something I don't know?” Balin looked at Oin with surprise.

“Last time he was sick, I found... erotic drawings and socks... under his bed as I was looking for something I dropped to the floor.” Oin sighed.

“Sandra, I thought you said you liked matured men...” Rita said low and lifted her eyebrows as she observed the so-called King-to-be and his best friend. Wilhelmina was sure she saw an evil smirk on her lips as she said this.

“I'm afraid of 100% adulthood...” Sandra mumbled.

Soon Thorin had covered his head and shoulders with scarves and helped Dwalin hiding his face as well, only his beard poking out here and there. The company laughed by the sight and decided to ignore them and got their mugs refilled with beer.

Peace was soon disturbed as someone jumped down on their table, screaming something in Khuzdul and then laughing loudly as several of them crashed to the floor in surprise. Before they even got to find out where Thorin came from, he had jumped over to the next table and headed for the door by jumping on things, all the way ripping his clothes off and he disappeared out the door. Dwalin followed just behind, jumping a bit more gracefully and humming an elvish song they heard in Rivendell, but at least he kept his clothes on. Only a few of the scarves dropped off and left a trail after him.

“Oh fuck.” Kili said and stared at the empty door, where most of the visitors were now looking.

“What the fuck was that?!” Nori whispered and looked around.

After a minute Dwalin climbed through the window and crashed on the bench behind them. “I could need some help!”

“What have you been doing?!” Wilhelmina turned to him in shock.

“He drank more than me, and then we found these mushrooms we used to make tea of back in Erebor, but he drank it all!” Dwalin sighed and looked around. “He ran away from me!”

“MUSHROOMS?!” Rita gasped and looked at him. “What kind?!”

“When was this?!” Balin shouted at his younger brother. “Have you forgotten what happened in Bree 147 years ago?!”

“No, Balin...! One hour ago or so. The one we call Stars, as they give you a feeling of euphoria. Commonly used on heavy days, or when you want an extra kick.” Dwalin wiped sweat off his forehead.

“GREAT!” Balin cried out. “Now he will be running around like a maniac for days!”

“No, it’s not that bad, it's just the fact that it's been ages since he drank it last time.” Gloin said and looked around. “But we should find him.”

Then a scream was heard from outside, and Rita got up and pulled Fili with her. “Now we know where he is!”

Sandra, Wilhelmina, Gloin and Bilbo followed them, and Rita was right – they found Thorin skinny dipping just outside the inn. “For Durin’s sake, Thorin! Get up now!” Gloin shouted.

“No, the water is great!” he shouted from the water, not noticing people either staring, laughing or walking away.

“It’s autumn and you’re drunk – we don’t want you either sick or drowned! Come back here! A dead king is a useless king!” Gloin sighed and reached out a hand.

“NEVER!” Thorin shouted and started to swim away from them.

“Oh great.” Rita rolled her eyes and started to get most of her clothes off. “Bilbo and Wilhelmina, go get some towels and blankets, Fili and Gloin, try to follow me from the shore and I’ll try to catch him.”

“Me then?” Sandra asked as she carefully picked up Sandra’s clothes.

“If necessary, flash your tits!” Rita mumbled and jumped into the water, wearing only her panties and bra, and started to swim after Thorin.

“Great...” Sandra rolled her eyes and followed Fili. “Tell me, usually he’s so earthbound and way too sensible, why did he go nuts?”

“For the last 150 years or something like that, he has only been drinking beer, ale or mead! Perhaps some wine.” Fili said as he jogged along the shore. “Mum says he stopped drinking stronger stuff after he got way too drunk when he was 45 and woke up naked in a barn with a pony, a sheep, a dog and 4 girls and 7 guys, covered with jam, and a sore butt. He still doesn't know who gave him the sore butt and that is... embarrassing.”

“WHAT?!”

“If that’s true or not, I don’t know – for all I know it might be a story she made up to bother him, but if it’s the truth, I don’t blame him. Only problem is that he completely lost control now!”

“You say...”

Meanwhile, Rita had caught up on Thorin and desperately tried to make him turn. Sandra facepalmed as she watched the battle, with Thorin splashing water on Rita like a maniac, while she did her best to approach him. Every time she got close enough, he ducked under and popped up somewhere else.

After it had happened the 17th time, she had enough. “You asked for it...” she mumbled and grabbed his hair and pulled him with her. Thorin’s scream was horrible, a scream that would have made a nazgul cry tears of blood and made Fili’s blood turn to ice.

“Come on uncle, do as she says!” he shouted and couldn’t believe what was going on.

“I'M A FREE DWARF!”

“Oh sweet lords...” Sandra shut her eyes in embarrassment and tried to ignore the screams and cries from the once so majestic dwarf. This was something completely different from the sounds she had heard earlier that day.

Soon Rita reached the shore and Fili and Gloin was quick to tackle Thorin and force him down on the ground and cover him with the blankets Bilbo and Wilhelmina had brought. “What on earth have you been drinking? I haven’t seen you like this since you were younger than your nephews!”

“It shmelled like throll pee and thasted like rainbows!” Thorin smiled as he sat up, suddenly calm and with a dreamy face, enjoying the rubbing from the towels. He almost reminded them of a kitten and looked like he could start purring in any moment. “Can I go back inshide now?”

“Well, you have to; you can't sit out here and freeze...” Wilhelmina said and handed him his clothes.

“Good!” he smiled and quickly got up, almost fell down again, ignored the fact that he showed himself in all nature’s glory, and somehow managed to get his clothes on again. “I feel wonderful!”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this...” Bilbo whispered to Fili.

“We all have...”

...

To their surprise, Thorin was peaceful, just stumbling more than usual and speaking with a thick accent instead of his usual simplified one, but at least not speaking funny anymore. After being convinced by Dwalin, he sat down, and the party went on like usual, and in the end Ori and Fili had to carry Kili to his room as he passed out after a drinking game with Nori and Dwalin (who seemed to never get too drunk).

The girls found peace again, sitting amongst the dwarves and the young hobbit, enjoying their pranks and jokes.

“Your hat is actually really warm Bofur!” Sandra giggled after he pretended she stole it from him, as he was still not fully recovered after the raki-like stuff.

“Of course it is, it’s made of wool and leather!” he smiled and laid an arm around her shoulder.

“Here, have some mead!” he smiled and handed her a mug of mead.

“Oh, you’re too generous!” she smiled and thanked him for it.

“OH ISN’T THAT GREAT?!” they heard someone shout from the other end of the table. Everyone turned to see, and they saw Thorin getting up from his chair, almost falling over Bombur before he straightened up. “Just because you can strip down to only your hat, girls be all over you! And the interesting thing, you always tend to let your dirty hat land on the head of the ones I like the most! Coincidence?!”

Nobody said a word, Sandra and Bofur just stared at Thorin with confused faces. Thorin climbed up on his chair, almost crashed down but clumsily saved himself and the chair before he turned sideways, starting to swing his hips. “THIS is what it looks like when you’re standing on the table and dancing!” he smacked his own butt, moving more and more and Ori stared with his mouth open, shocked that his leader behaved in this way. “BITCHES BE ALL OVER ME SOON! Maybe I should rip my clothes off as well?!” Thorin shouted, swaying his hips as he started to lift his shirt.

“THORIN, NO!” Dwalin shouted and pulled Thorin down before he lost more of his dignity, or what was left of it.

Thorin crashed onto Dwalin’s lap, stared at his old friend for a moment with a face so furious that even Dwalin felt pure fear, then he broke into tears and his face crashed against his neck as he cried. “The memories are coming back again!”

Balin closed his eyes and looked like he slowly counted to 489 backwards to not say anything he would regret. Fili rubbed his temples and stared at his ale, while Dori and Oin started to whisper.

Sandra stared at Rita and Wilhelmina, wondering what the hell to do.

Thorin rocked back and forth and whimpered and Dwalin tried the best he could to comfort him.

“Here laddie, have more!” he said with a soft and caring voice and handed Thorin some water.

“You’re kind to me, you’ve always been.” Thorin sobbed and drank the water. “You were there when my first dog died, nobody else were, they said it was just a dog. Bingo was my best friend, he was the only one except from you that understood how it was to be the grandchild of the King under the Mountain. It wasn’t easy, I tell you!”

“I know, already then you had a lot of burdens and expectations.” Dwalin said and carefully pulled a few strands of hair away from Thorin’s face that was wet by tears and snot.

“Still, the worst is Azanulbizar! I can see Azog beheading grandpa!” Thorin wheezed and buried his face against the fur Dwalin was wearing. “Then finding Frerin! So typical of him being so clumsy, he managed to get himself killed after the battle by stumbling on an orc spear, how is that even possible?!”

“It was very slippery, because of blood and gore, Thorin” Dwalin said but stopped as Thorin used his fur as a handkerchief.

“I know Dwalin, that’s why he should have stayed in the tent as I told him to!” Thorin cried. “I failed to take care of him!”

“Don’t blame yourself“

“EASY FOR YOU TO SAY YOU COOKIE MONSTER!”

“I can’t help I like cookies! They’re tasty!”

Then Thorin suddenly lit up. “Tasty, you said it! LET’S GO ROLLING FOR COOKIES DWALIN!”

“Oh gods...” Sandra facepalmed, which most of the dwarves did.

Thorin wiped his face dry, put on the brightest smile and slid down from Dwalin’s lap. Dwalin didn’t know any better than following him and they left the table, arm in arm, believing they looked ever so cool despite all their stumbles and crashes with tables and chairs. Thorin turned, locked his eyes with Bofur's, snapped his fingers in the z-formation, forming the words “bitch please” with his lips.

“What have I taught him...” Wilhelmina sighed and downed her wine.

“He learns quickly.” Rita agreed, wondering what the hell she had just witnessed.

...

The rest of the evening they became helpless witnesses as Thorin stumbled across the Master and his guards. They had expected the Master to be disgusted by the condition of his guest and potential trading partner, but instead he found it all exciting. The Master drank more than the whole company together, and soon he and Thorin had made a hell of a party in the pub and the area outside, since this pulled the attention to everyone in a party mood in the entire town, especially when the Master called out that he would pay all drinks from now on. The bartender looked like he was in heaven.

“I... did not expect this...” Fili whispered as he watched his uncle dance on the table with the Master himself.

“You know, he's old, fat, disgusting, perverted and ugly, I'm sure he's glad someone wants to throw a party with him. Alfrid hasn't given me the impression of being a party animal...” Rita said and lifted her eyebrows.

In the next moment, Alfrid came in, wearing only a pyjamas and his furry cloak. As he saw Thorin and the Master on the table, his mouth dropped down. Then Thorin spotted him, pushed a mug of beer in his hands and invited him to join them. Before the company knew it, he had joined the party as well.

“You know, we’re only missing the rave music and the blinking lights. Maybe some speed to top the mood a bit for a couple of hours...” Wilhelmina sighed.

Sandra held up the infamous phone and turned on the rave-app, which made the phone blink with lights and colours. “Put on the sunglasses, bitches.”

“Why not?” Rita shrugged her shoulders and handed out sunglasses to everyone.

So there they sat, with a phone blinking with neon colours from the screen, loud folk music and watched their King-to-be dance with the Master of Laketown and a horde of local villagers who took a chance to have a party now as the Master said he would pay everything.

*

Most of them had gone to bed as Thorin and Dwalin showed up again, each with a cookie jar.

“Where did you get that?” Fili asked suspiciously. He was the only one there except from Rita, Wilhelmina, Nori and Sandra.

“We found them.” Thorin shrugged his shoulders, his mouth full of cookies. His hair was still wet, his eyes were red but his smile was dreamy after what he considered a really good night. Dwalin fought to stand straight, just smiled a silly smile as he finally had found his cookies, and finally he showed signs of affections from all that he had been drinking and dancing. The clock said 5:30 in the morning and the pub was almost empty by now.

“Right...” Fili said and turned back to speak with Wilhelmina and Nori, while Sandra looked at them.

Dwalin leant closer to Sandra to whisper something, while Thorin just stood there and looking ever so peaceful as he munched on a new cookie, more or less reminding her of a 5 year old kid with beard and long hair. “I’m trying to get him to bed, but could you help me?”

“Well... Worth a try...” she said nervously and got up.

“Where are you going?” Thorin asked as he saw her move.

“Uhm... Back to the Master's house...?” Sandra said and tried to look like it was just normal and something she did all the time.

“Oh...” Thorin said and followed Dwalin as he had silently headed out. They walked to Thorin’s room in silence, and there Dwalin opened the door. “What?”

“We’re going in here.” Dwalin said and shrugged his shoulders.

“Why?”

“It’s late.”

“You’re up to something...”

“PILLOW WAR!” Sandra screamed and ran in – Thorin stared after her and then ran, Sandra grabbed a pillow and hit him as hard as she could, and he crashed to the ground.

“Oops, sorry. Totally not what I planned.” She said and smiled to Dwalin, who shook his head and lifted Thorin onto the bed.

“Unfair...” Thorin mumbled and looked at Sandra.

“Good night, sweet dreams.” She smiled as she got his boots off.

“I feel alone...” he whimpered and looked at her with googly puppy eyes.

“That won’t work.” She said and kissed his cheek, trying to not laugh at the sight.

“It’s cold.”

“It’s just autumn.”

“Can I have a good night kiss?”

“You just got one.”

“But that was on the cheek.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Never mind.” Thorin sighed and turned around and fell asleep.

“Easier than expected.” Dwalin said and pulled the duvet over him.

“I have a feeling that tomorrow will be worse.”

“Aye...”

They left the room, and as they closed it, Dwalin looked at Sandra. “Tell me – is it true?”

“What?” Sandra said, suddenly nervous again.

“I heard Fili and Kili whisper something. They had heard a conversation between you girls. Are you and Thorin humping?” Dwalin just asked straight forward.

“That might be...” Sandra said and blushed so much that she was glad there was little light in the hall. “So?”

“Good! Then he's your responsibility tomorrow!” Dwalin patted her shoulder and left.

“Hey wait, that's unfair! You said just humping!” Sandra shouted after him.

“We all know that you'll be married in a few months now anyways! Good night!” and the door to Dwalin's room was shut.

“You douchebag...” she mumbled. She could already hear Thorin snoring, but she knew that tomorrow he would feel like he was dragged to hell and back again. One part of her felt sorry for him, the other part not. She decided to go back to his room and make sure he didn't do anything stupid.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what do you think of my crackfic so far? Feel free to leave a comment! ^^


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